Binance acquires $100 million equity stake in Circle, ties fees to USDC distribution

Binance has purchased equity in the issuer of USDC and locked in recurring revenue tied to how much of the stablecoin flows through its infrastructure, cementing a partnership that began with announced support and now extends to financial alignment at the issuer level.

The exchange bought 1,237,011 Circle shares at $80.84 each in a private placement that closed on September 17, per Decrypt's reporting. The $100 million investment came with a five-year commercial arrangement under which Circle will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee set as a percentage of USDC held through Binance's Modular Smart Contract Wallet service.

This is the third iteration of a Binance-Circle tie-up in under two years. The first was announced at Abu Dhabi Finance Week in December 2024, when Binance said it would make USDC available across its products and hold it in corporate treasury. An August 2025 agreement followed before this latest version, which supersedes both.

Binance is restricted from selling, transferring, pledging or hedging the shares for two years from closing, though affiliate transfers, a board-approved takeover and legally required disposals are excepted. The exchange retains full shareholder voting rights in the meantime.Circle shares stood in the mid-$80s on September 17 and rose through subsequent sessions to close at $94.49 on September 21, putting Binance's stake at approximately $116.9 million on paper, some $16.9 million above what it paid.

Circle's stock remains down about 34% over the trailing 12 months, per Decrypt's reporting, against a 16.5% gain for the S&P 500. The deal closed a day after Circle switched on Arc, a Layer 1 network with BlackRock, DTCC and Visa among its founding validators and USDC as its gas token. Binance is one of the exchanges providing routes onto Arc.

Paying for distribution is how USDC has always reached users, according to Decrypt. Coinbase, which co-founded the stablecoin, takes half the interest earned on its reserves. Compass Point analysts began coverage of Circle at neutral in June 2025, reasoning that its distribution partners were confined largely to crypto firms, a concentration risk the Binance arrangement addresses only in scale, not in kind. The equity stake and fee structure now create a second exchange on the payroll, this one holding stock in the issuer paying it.