Circle’s broader agreement with Binance can grant USDC heightened visibility across emerging regions and worldwide exchange markets, experts point out, while applying extra pressure on Tether’s long-standing dominance in the dollar-pegged stablecoin sector.
Binance invested $100 million into Circle equity and finalized a five-year commercial pact to support and feature USDC throughout its ecosystem. This arrangement secures Binance a financial interest in Circle’s expansion while offering Circle enhanced market reach via one of the planet’s premier digital asset platforms.
Owen Lau, an analyst at Clear Street, told CoinDesk that this optimizes their connection and closely unifies Binance’s goals with those of Circle, mirroring the distributor-owner structure shared by Circle and Coinbase.
Binance has already become a major USDC venue
The initial collaboration between the two firms, introduced back in December 2024, has already transformed how USDC transactions occur on Binance.
Kaiko reports that when the collaboration kicked off, the platform supported 140 spot markets denominated in USDC. That figure has since expanded to 329, contrasting sharply with the slower growth from 39 markets in 2021 up to 140 near the end of 2024.
Furthermore, monthly trading activity for USDC on Binance has essentially doubled, climbing from a prior baseline of $20 billion to $40 billion prior to the alliance up to levels consistently surpassing $80 billion.
Anastasia Melachrinos, research director at Kaiko, noted that throughout 2026 Binance has consistently maintained the highest portion of USDC spot trading volume, handling daily amounts between $5 billion and $10 billion, which is roughly 10 to 20 times greater than most alternate platforms that typically stay beneath $0.5 billion.
Data from Kaiko reveals that other major trading platforms have largely stayed within their historic USDC activity bands, implying that Binance itself has been the primary catalyst for the surge.
Melachrinos added that as Binance accelerates the presence of USDC within developing regions, that market leadership will likely expand further.
More pressure on Tether
With a market valuation near $74 billion, USDC stands as the second-most prominent U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, trailing behind Tether’s USDT which commands roughly $140 billion.
Martins Benkitis, CEO and co-founder of Gravity Team, explained that both parties share a distinct incentive to scale USDC utilizing Binance’s infrastructure and user base.
Beyond minting stablecoins, Circle has also been expanding its offerings. Its Circle Payments Network aims to link banking institutions for stablecoin transactions, and its recently announced $400 million purchase of the Singapore-based cross-border payments company Tazapay integrates established local banking connections and payment tracks across developing markets.
This tactical move arrives as competition within the stablecoin market spreads beyond just Circle and Tether, with traditional financial institutions and payment giants like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe increasingly entering stablecoin infrastructure and transaction services.
Circle also maintains a robust business partnership with Coinbase, which aids in distributing USDC and divides the revenue. Lau mentioned that the Binance contract does not grant Circle added leverage over Coinbase, pointing out that Circle recently renewed that alliance as well.
Although Binance can present USDC to a larger audience, Tether’s entrenched payment and trading network implies that shifting market dominance rapidly will remain challenging.
Benkitis stated that this places heavier scrutiny on USDT, especially within global markets and emerging economies where it has cemented a robust footprint over numerous years, though distribution alone will not alter the landscape overnight since USDT maintains extensive trading pairs, localized liquidity, and deep-seated user familiarity.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/09/26/binance-deal-gives-circle-a-boost-in-stablecoin-race-with-tether-analysts-say.
