According to Woofun AI, in the face of the challenge of emerging stablecoin projects in the market using the 'full return of reserve benefits' as a gimmick, Circle (CRCL.US) Chief Commercial Officer Kash Razzaghi officially came forward to clarify the misunderstanding and countered allegations of the issuer's profiteering monopoly by disclosing USDC's real financial accounts.
The purpose of this move is to show the market that in the process of building a global digital dollar, compliance costs and ecological profit sharing are the core logic, rather than simply withholding interest.
In the first half of 2026, USDC settled more than $36 trillion in transactions on the chain, while Circle (CRCL.US) minted and redeemed hundreds of billions of dollars in fiat funds. Behind this huge scale is a digital dollar system that is fully put into operation in a production environment: global clearing capacity in trillions, seamless entry and exit mechanisms in 10 billion fiat currencies, and completely equal amounts of cash and equivalent reserves held in regulated financial institutions around the world.
Recently, however, new entrants to the market claim that they can create a more 'practical' stablecoin, with the same rhetoric accusing traditional issuers of monopolizing reserve proceeds and promising to generously return interest to users. This marketing rhetoric fundamentally misrepresents the way USDC works and seriously underestimates the huge infrastructure costs required to maintain a production-grade digital dollar on a global scale. As the commercial head of Circle (CRCL.US), Kash Razzaghi emphasized the need to clarify three basic facts: Over the years, Circle has shared the vast majority of USDC's economic benefits with the ecological partners driving its implementation; all customers can redeem USDC for free through standard banking channels, and funds are usually settled within two working days; and measured by core metrics, USDC is the most liquid stablecoin in the market and the gap with competitors continues to widen.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, Circle (CRCL.US) achieved total revenue of about $1.4 billion in the first half of 2026, of which up to $819 million was paid directly to distribution channel partners, accounting for nearly 60% of the company's total revenue. Circle re-invests the vast majority of its remaining revenue back into network infrastructure. Approximately $473 million was spent in the first half of the year, equivalent to 34 cents of every dollar of revenue being spent on technology research and development, safety risk control, compliance reviews, and global license acquisition. After deducting all of these necessary expenses, Circle's net revenue was only about $108 million, and the net profit margin was only around 7%.
This financial structure clearly shows that the real income distribution of USDC does not go to a single entity, but rather stimulates the ecosystem through a high-percentage dividend mechanism and maintains system stability through intensive reinvestment.
This intensive capital reinvestment is by no means an ordinary administrative expense. It is the foundation that gives USDC the ultimate practical value, and has gathered Circle (CRCL.US)'s deep cultivation and accumulation over 8 years. A digital dollar cannot operate out of thin air. It requires compliance and clearing networks in various jurisdictions around the world, automated monitoring technology that complies with anti-money laundering laws, top treasury management and liquidity buffers, and deep system integration with traditional financial giants such as Visa (V.US), Stripe, and Mastercard (MA.US). The real core issue in the industry has never been 'whether reserve earnings should flow to companies built on stablecoins', because USDC's financial books have proven with ironclad facts: earnings have long been flowing to partners on a large scale. The real key is whether an issuer has the comprehensive ability to not only establish a business model to share results with partners, but also bear the huge costs required to maintain global financial-level credibility.
This capability forms the USDC's impenetrable moat, enabling it to operate robustly in a complex global regulatory environment.
The commercial profit sharing mechanism follows the scale of adoption, and the partner that brings the most USDC increments to the market also earns the most revenue. As Circle (CRCL.US)'s largest strategic partner, Coinbase (COIN.US) has enjoyed a considerable revenue share based on transparent agreements between the two parties for a long time. But Coinbase is just one member of Circle's vast cooperative network. In September of this year, Binance (Binance), the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, signed a 5-year strategic agreement with Circle to deeply integrate USDC into the Binance platform to provide seamless global stablecoin services to hundreds of millions of users.
Overall, the model for partners to participate in the USDC economic system is very clear. There are two main paths: one is to introduce and expand the balance size to earn lasting benefits, that is, distribution partners who hold and continue to expand the size of USDC deposits on their own platforms can directly receive proportional share of reserve revenue. The other is to build a platform-based business and enjoy instant redemption at zero cost, that is, transfer funds through the Circle (CRCL.US) payment network (CPN) Commercial customers who build businesses on the Circle developer platform can enjoy large fee-free payments with industry-leading efficiency.
Misinformation about USDC redemption fees has caused the most confusion in the market. The operating principle is that every Circle (CRCL.US) customer can redeem USDC for free, redemption operations through standard bank clearing channels are never charged, and funds usually arrive safely within a maximum of two working days.
At the same time, the Circle (CRCL.US) payment network (CPN) supports near-real-time free settlement. Enterprise customers that use USDC as the core settlement layer and transfer payment flows through CPN can now enjoy near-real-time fiat fund settlement completely free of charge. Eligible customers of the platform can unlock near-real-time free redemption rights, such as maintaining a certain amount of USDC deposits on the platform or using Circle's escrow wallet service.
The reason why this rapid settlement ability can be achieved is that the core support is an internal liquidity buffer pool established with huge investment. During bank closures or cross-time zone clearing, multi-billion dollar fund payments can be completed in near real time, requiring issuers to pay for liquidity at their own capital costs.
If some speculative customers require unconditional withdrawal of huge amounts of cash at lightning speed during non-bank business hours and do not participate in any ecological construction, charging extremely low service fees for such niche special requests is a reasonable measure to maintain the fairness and safety of the system. Circle (CRCL.US) has completely overcome these tests over the past 8 years, has more than 55 compliant financial licenses and registrations around the world, including the US OCC National Trust Bank license, and was the first in Europe to fully pass the extremely stringent MiCA stablecoin law compliance review. USDC's business model is an ecological flywheel of mutual benefit. The vast majority of economic benefits are directly returned to the ecological partners that drive its adoption, while surplus capital is unswervingly reinvested in technology infrastructure, regulatory compliance, and global liquidity networks, which is why it has become an unshakable cornerstone of value in the global digital economy.