Tether added nearly twice as many dollars as USDC on Binance since Circle started paying

On Sept. 22, Circle and Binance announced a new five-year commercial agreement alongside Binance's $100 million equity investment in Circle.

The commercial agreement runs through September 2031, although either company can terminate it earlier under specified circumstances.

Binance bought 1.237 million Circle Class A shares at $80.84 each, a 5% discount to Circle's Sept. 17 closing price, and agreed to a two-year restriction on selling, pledging or hedging the shares.

Those payments ranged from an annualized mid-double-digit to high-double-digit percentage of a fixed rate reset quarterly at a discount to three-month SOFR.

Binance also agreed, subject to certain exceptions, to keep $3 billion of USDC in its treasury, with treasury incentive payments requiring at least $1.5 billion to remain there.

Either party can terminate the new partnership before the full term if specified events occur, though the termination thresholds and related figures have not been publicly disclosed.

Circle reported $39.7 billion of USDC in circulation on Nov. 29, 2024, and DeFiLlama currently puts circulating USDC at roughly $74.4 billion, up about 87%.

The new five-year contract consolidates and replaces the November 2024 and August 2025 arrangements.

USDC has a market capitalisation of nearly $76 billion, second to Tether's USDT at roughly $183 billion.

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said the $100 million investment reflects the exchange's "long-duration conviction" in Circle.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire wrote on X: "As the world's largest and most widely used wallet for stablecoins and onchain finance, the partnership will accelerate global and emerging market preference and adoption of USDC. The internet financial system is expanding everywhere and this partnership will help to expand access to this new financial system to hundreds of millions of people and businesses around the world."

In exchange for marketing and promotional work for USDC, Circle will pay Binance a monthly fee based on a percentage of the USDC balance held through Binance's Modular Smart Contract Wallet service.

The agreement focuses on expanding USDC access, particularly in emerging markets.

Circle expanded the relationship in August 2025 around USDC held through its Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure, with incentives equal to a high-double-digit percentage of a fixed rate tied to three-month SOFR.

Binance customers held about $1.5 billion of USDC on Oct. 1, 2024, shortly before Circle entered into its original Binance agreement in November.

Binance's Sept. 1 proof-of-reserves snapshot shows customer USDC balances at about $7.13 billion, up roughly 376%, or almost fivefold.

Circle's regulatory filings show USDC represented 5% of stablecoins held on Binance on July 1, 2024, 10% by Jan. 1, 2025, and 22% by July 1, 2025.

A $80.84 price at a 5% discount implies a Sept. 17 reference close of about $85.09.

Binance customers held $21.4 billion of USDT in the Oct. 1, 2024 reserve snapshot.

By Sept. 1, customer USDT balances on Binance had risen to $32.3 billion, an increase of about 51% over the period.

The USDT-to-USDC ratio on Binance narrowed from roughly $14.30 of USDT per dollar of USDC to approximately 4.5 to 1.

The increase in Binance customer USDC balances equals about 16% of the net growth in circulating USDC over the period.

USDT's global market cap is about 2.4 times USDC's, against a USDT-to-USDC ratio of about 4.5 to 1 on Binance.

One percentage point of annualised pass-through on $7.13 billion of balances is $71.3 million a year, or about $356 million over five years.

The $60.25 million upfront fee in the November 2024 deal equalled about 4% of the $1.5 billion of customer USDC then on Binance, and about 0.85% of today's $7.13 billion.

On the Oct. 1, 2024 snapshot the difference between USDT and USDC balances on Binance was $19.9 billion.

On the Sept. 1 snapshot the difference between USDT and USDC balances on Binance was about $25.2 billion.

The dollar difference between USDT and USDC balances on Binance widened by about $5.3 billion over the period.

Between the two snapshots USDT balances on Binance rose $10.9 billion and USDC balances rose about $5.6 billion.

CRCL closed at $94.49 on Sept. 21, at which price Binance's 1,237,011 shares would be worth roughly $116.9 million, a paper gain of about $16.9 million that cannot be realised during the two-year lockup.

Over the past 12 months, CRCL stock dropped by about 34%.

Regulatory pressure in Europe has made things harder for USDT, USDC's biggest rival stablecoin, according to Cryptopolitan.