Circle Wants AI Payments to Create an Entirely New Stablecoin Market

Circle’s latest earnings suggest USDC is beginning to separate from the crypto cycle just as autonomous software agents create a potentially new market for digital payments.

But the company’s second quarter 2026 earnings call Wednesday (Aug. 5) exposed the central tension in its evolution from stablecoin issuer to financial infrastructure company: Circle’s USDC is moving through the digital economy at extraordinary speed, but the revenue generated from that activity remains tied primarily to interest rates and the amount of money sitting in circulation.

“Our quarterly financial results reflect the current rate environment and a crypto market that has slowed — both are conditions outside our network. But near-term activity tells a different story. We received our federal trust bank charter; Arc is launching on public mainnet September 16th; we launched the Agent Stack to put programmable money at the center of the agentic economy; and the institutions using USDC today, like BlackRock, BNY, and Standard Chartered aren’t piloting, they are expanding,” Circle Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire said.

USDC’s share of the fiat-backed dollar stablecoin market ended the quarter at 27%, down 66 basis points year over year, even as circulation increased. The company also reported $83 billion of USDC minted and $87 billion redeemed, illustrating how fluid stablecoin balances can be. USDC on-chain transaction volume reached $14.8 trillion during the quarter, up 151% year over year; while Circle’s total revenue and reserve income increased a comparatively modest 7% to $701 million. USDC circulation ended the period at $73.3 billion, up 19%.

But the central question facing investors is no longer whether USDC continues growing. It is whether Circle can successfully evolve before the economics of stablecoin issuance become commoditized.

Circle’s shares have swung sharply in recent weeks amid concerns that a consortium-backed rival stablecoin, Open USD, could pressure the economics underlying USDC. Wall Street remains divided over whether Circle’s competitive advantages can offset a business model that still derives most of its revenue from interest earned on reserves.

Read more: Crypto Experts Tell PYMNTS Where Digital Assets Go Next

Stablecoin Competition Is Shifting From Tokens to Economics

Circle is positioning USDC not simply as a digital dollar that generates interest income, but as the settlement asset inside a broader network of payments, tokenized assets, institutional liquidity and autonomous software.

For now, however, Circle remains fundamentally a reserve-income business. The company generated $668 million of reserve income in the quarter, representing roughly 95% of total revenue and reserve income. Reserve income rose 5% from a year earlier as average USDC circulation increased 25%, partially offset by a 66-basis-point decline in the reserve return rate to 3.5%. Other revenue, which includes subscription and services revenue, rose 41% but remained comparatively small at $34 million.

Management largely avoided discussing competitors directly during Circle’s earnings call. Instead, executives emphasized something different: network effects. The company noted it now works with more than 15 banking partners, over 150 commercial distribution partners and thousands of companies building products around USDC. Management also argued that roughly 70% of companies participating in newly announced consortium efforts already use USDC today.

The company’s revised guidance also reflects an attempt to accelerate its diversification from the rest of the stablecoin landscape. Circle more than doubled its 2026 other-revenue outlook, raising it from $150 million to between $310 million and $330 million. However, the new forecast includes recognized revenue from a presale of its planned ARC token, meaning the increase should not be interpreted entirely as recurring operating revenue.

See also: Crypto Stopped Fighting Banks and Started Copying Them

Payments Are Becoming the Distribution Layer for Digital Asset Financial Services

Perhaps Circle’s most revealing statistic from the quarter wasn’t revenue. It was that USDC circulation increased 19% year over year while the broader digital asset market declined roughly 40%. Management repeatedly highlighted that divergence as evidence that USDC is becoming less dependent on cryptocurrency trading cycles and increasingly tied to enterprise payments, settlement and financial infrastructure.

The Circle Payments Network reached an annualized transaction volume of $14.7 billion based on the final 30 days of the quarter, up 76% sequentially. The network had enrolled 175 financial institutions, an increase of 29% from the previous quarter.

The company is applying a similar approach to artificial intelligence commerce. Circle said its Agent Stack already supports more than 900 paid services, while USDC accounts for 99.3% of payment volume using the x402 agent-payment protocol. Circle plans to add capabilities that allow autonomous agents not only to spend money but also to earn it. Importantly, management did not present agent commerce as an immediate revenue opportunity. Instead, executives argued that AI activity would ultimately increase stablecoin balances, payment velocity and usage of Circle’s broader infrastructure.

Data in “Waiting for Certainty: Why Most CFOs Are Holding Back on Crypto and Stablecoins”, a recent installment of PYMNTS Intelligence’s 2026 Certainty Project, shows that most middle market companies remain cautious about digital assets: 13% of firms use stablecoins and just 5% use other cryptocurrencies.