Binance has invested $100 million in Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, as part of an expanded five-year agreement to promote USDC on the cryptocurrency exchange, deepening ties between two of the most prominent companies in the digital-asset market.

Circle issued Binance 1.24 million Class A shares at $80.84 each in a private placement completed on September 17, 2026, according to a regulatory filing. The share issuance gives Binance a direct equity stake in the publicly listed issuer, structuring the partnership as both an investment and a commercial arrangement.

As part of the arrangement, Binance will integrate USDC into additional savings and investment products on its platform and offer incentives around USDC trading, widening the places where users of the exchange can hold and use the dollar-pegged token.

Under the agreement, Circle will pay Binance monthly incentive fees linked to USDC held through Binance's Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure, while Binance has committed to undertake additional activities to promote the stablecoin. The fee design ties Binance's compensation to the amount of USDC held on its platform, linking the exchange's earnings to the stablecoin's use among its users.

The new deal replaces agreements between the two companies reached in November 2024 and August 2025, extending a relationship previously built through successive agreements into a five-year framework, with the product integrations and monthly fee payments serving as the concrete markers of its rollout.

In connection with the share issuance, Binance is restricted from selling, assigning, pledging, or transferring the Circle shares for up to two years, subject to specified conditions. The lock-up means the $100 million investment cannot be exited in the near term and remains held alongside the commercial commitments of the partnership.

USDC is a stablecoin pegged one-to-one to the US dollar and ranks among the largest stablecoins by market capitalization. Circle, which manages the token's issuance and reserves, listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 2025 under the ticker CRCL. Binance operates one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume, and the two companies first established a partnership in November 2024, followed by a further agreement in August 2025.

Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain a constant value against a reference currency, and dollar-pegged tokens such as USDC are widely used for trading, payments, and settlement across crypto markets.

This report was originally published by BitcoinKE.