Binance Commits $100M Stake in Circle With New USDC Pact
Circle sells Binance $100M in discounted CRCL shares as the pair expand their USDC deal.
Binance is now a Circle shareholder. The exchange scooped up $100M worth of CRCL stock via private placement, per a Tuesday SEC filing, and inked a fresh 5-year deal to push USDC to its users, with a big focus on emerging markets.
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What’s the Scoop?
The stake: Binance got roughly 1.24M Class A shares at $80.84 apiece, a 5% haircut to CRCL's pre-closing price. The sale closed Sept. 17th. Binance is locked in for up to two years, with no selling or hedging allowed, but it can still vote its shares.
Payouts: Circle will pay Binance a monthly fee pegged to a cut of the USDC that users park in wallets running on Circle's Modular Smart Contract Wallet tech. It's the third USDC tie-up between the two since late 2024, superseding both earlier deals, and both companies have escape hatches if certain triggers hit.
Big picture: Paying distributors to hold USDC is standard stablecoin strategy now. Adding equity to the mix gives Binance a stake in Circle's whole stack, Arc included, not just the token. The news lands days after Circle took its Arc L1 live on mainnet, and Binance co-CEO Richard Teng namechecked Arc in announcing the investment.
William M. Peaster
William M. Peaster, Senior Writer, has been with Bankless since January 2021. Immersed in Ethereum since 2017, he covers the onchain frontier with a particular interest in art, games, and other culture apps. He has a background in creative writing and writes fiction in his free time.
