Circle (NYSE: CRCL) has published an extensive blog post detailing how it shares USDC revenue with its distribution partners, a disclosure widely read as a response to Open USD (OUSD), the challenger stablecoin recently integrated across Stripe's stablecoin stack. Beneath the corporate sparring sits a question that now defines the stablecoin business: who keeps the income a token's reserves generate, and how much of it flows to the platforms that put that token in users' hands.

The Friday, October 16 post was written by Circle's chief commercial officer, Kash Razzaghi, and never names a rival outright. OUSD, however, is powered by a new issuer that promises to hand back more of the money a stablecoin earns, and the substance of Circle's blog tracks that pitch closely.

Where does USDC revenue go?

Circle reported that it made around $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026. It said about $819 million of that revenue, which amounts to roughly 59 cents of every dollar, went to the wallets, exchanges, banks, and payment firms that distribute USDC, along with transaction costs.

A further $473 million, around 34 cents of each dollar, was reinvested in licenses, banking relationships, settlement liquidity, compliance, and blockchain development. That left 7 cents of net profit per revenue dollar, according to the company.

Those figures give readers a concrete yardstick for judging the dispute: they show how much of each revenue dollar Circle already hands to distribution partners, the arrangement OUSD's keep-almost-everything pitch is built to compete against.

The redemption fight at the center of it

At the center of the rivalry is redemption: how cheaply and quickly holders can turn their tokens back into fiat. Redemption terms carry outsized weight in stablecoin competition because the product's core promise is that holders can exit into dollars when they need to. The Open Standard Consortium introduced the OUSD token on June 30 with a promise that businesses could mint and redeem at no cost and without volume caps, while partners would keep all reserve earnings minus a small management fee.

Stripe, announcing on September 30 that OUSD had gone live across its stablecoin stack, said the token carries no minting or burning fees and lets partner businesses earn rewards tied to their activity and balances.

Circle's counterargument is that free redemption is nothing new. It stated that all of its customers can cash out through standard bank rails at no charge, with settlement in up to two business days. Circle pointed out that all of its customers who move money over the Circle Payments Network or build on its platform can now redeem USDC for free. It added that this comes with near-real-time, 24/7 settlement capabilities.

Circle also disclosed that it redeemed $71.8 billion of USDC in the first quarter of 2026 — roughly 90% of the supply in circulation at the time, a volume that speaks to the scale of exits its infrastructure has already processed.

A challenger about one-hundredth the size

The gulf between USDC and OUSD remains very large at present. USDC's supply sits at around $72.6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data, while OUSD has roughly 1% of that.

Circle's leadership has addressed the challenger at least twice in the four months since its debut. The first remarks came around launch day, when CEO Jeremy Allaire played down the arrival of OUSD and said Circle welcomed competition.

Even so, Circle's shares declined by around 13% following the announcement of the OUSD launch and the message that its issuers would distribute reserve yield to partners instead of keeping it.

The Open Standard Consortium counts more than 140 companies among its backers, including Stripe, Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock — a roster that reaches from crypto exchanges to the largest card networks and asset managers. Some analysts who shared their views after the launch acknowledged that it was a threat to Circle's business, among them Rob Hadick of Dragonfly. That was not everyone's position, however: Clear Street's Owen Lau said the selloff looked like an overreaction, pointing to Paxos' consortium-backed USDG, which had reached only $3 billion in supply.

With the two sides far apart in scale and analysts split between threat and overreaction, the debate for now turns on measurable ground: OUSD's supply relative to USDC's, the redemption terms each offers, and the revenue-share deals platforms can secure.

Coinbase and Binance take the biggest cuts

Circle says more than 150 partners share in USDC's economics, though the payouts are heavily concentrated. "The partners that bring the most USDC to market earn the most," the company wrote.

The blog cited the second-quarter earnings of Coinbase, Circle's largest and longest-standing partner. Coinbase held an average of $20 billion of USDC inside its products — more than 30% of the quarter-end supply — and captured roughly half of USDC's economic rewards over the past year, according to Circle.

Binance is another major beneficiary. The world's largest exchange invested $100 in Circle and signed a five-year deal under which Circle pays a monthly fee to promote USDC. That concentration is where the competitive stakes sit: Circle's economics run through a small set of very large distribution partners, precisely the constituency OUSD's model courts with its offer to let partners keep more of the reserve earnings.