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- Circle is on a roll - Stablecoin Dispatch Volume 7 (01/09/25)
Circle is on a roll - Stablecoin Dispatch Volume 7 (01/09/25)
It's become difficult to keep up with Circle's announcements.
Olabinjo Adeniran
September 01, 2025
Bonjour!
My European side showed up in August - I don’t believe in working in the summer. Full stop. If you saw me working, you didn’t see me. There has been some really exciting news in stablecoins, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
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Now let’s get into today’s newsletter.
Circle keeps shipping
Since the last edition of Stablecoin Dispatch, USDC issuer Circle has made numerous announcements. Let’s take them apart.
It launched Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain explicitly designed for stablecoins. Distribution is key here, and Circle has the partnerships (and quite literally, the money) to ensure adoption of this blockchain. In the linked press release, Arc will be focused on institutional usage and not necessarily customer adoption - this is a smart move IMO - go where the money needs to be. Circle’s play is very different from Coinbase’s play with Base, which requires significant consumer adoption and education.
Circle launched USYC for Binance’s institutional customers. USYC is a tokenised money market fund that exposes investors to US-domiciled money market assets. Binance’s global footprint helps expand the adoption of USYC itself and USDC for redemptions.
It has partnered with Mastercard to deliver EURC and USDC settlements for acquirers in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This means acquiring institutions will be able to settle transactions using these stablecoins.
It announced integrations with FIS Partners and Finastra. FIS Partners will provide USDC to financial institutions that use its platforms, while Finastra will deliver cross-border payments to banks on its platform.
This much is clear: Circle is building a new, blockchain-based global network of money across its products, its own platforms (Arc is one), and its global partners, ensuring that its tokens (USDC, EURC, USYC) are used where needed. For a company that’s now publicly listed, Circle needs to deliver growth and revenue to its shareholders. So far, it seems to have a plan to do just that.
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When I started working in crypto, Ripple was one of the most interesting companies. Aside from its very early lawsuit with the US SEC, Ripple had built its blockchain to connect financial institutions globally and facilitate cross-border transactions. At the time, this was a use case that wasn’t clear to many. Ripple has persisted in its mission, won its lawsuits, and acquired more than 60 licenses in multiple countries.
Last year, Ripple launched RLUSD - its own stablecoin, which would eventually deliver on its cross-border vision. It wasn’t entirely clear how RLUSD distribution would work, beyond blockchains and exchanges, but this Rail acquisition shows a potential pathway. Rail provides global settlements via stablecoins and allows its customers in 9 countries to transact without intermediaries.
My thought is that Ripple has acquired Rail to expand Rail’s software platform to more countries where it (Ripple) already has licenses and financial partner networks.
The acquisition is pending regulatory approval, which is expected to be received in the final quarter of this year.
Around the world in Stablecoins.
MetaMask launches stablecoin
My former employer, Consensys, has launched mUSD in partnership with Bridge and M0. The company is known for being behind on crypto trends and at least this time it’s launching something in the heat of conversation. mUSD will launch first on Ethereum and Linea, already showing distribution and liquidity limitations of the token.
It’s not every day we receive news from my home continent (even though it was ahead in stablecoin usage by like 5 years). A new report by Chainalysis breaks down cryptocurrency usage in Africa. The report highlights Nigeria’s continued leadership in the African crypto scene. My favourite chart is the one below :)
Rain raises $58M series B.
Rain has raised a series B round from the usual suspects Dragonfly and Galaxy ventures. The round also includes Endeavour Catalyst, Samsung Next, and other investors. Rain uses stablecoins to provide virtual cards, accounts, and wallet infrastructure.
Crypto on-ramp provider Transak has raised $16M to expand into the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Tether and IDG Capital led this round of funding. The company holds licenses in several jurisdictions.
On-ramp and off-ramp stablecoin competition is heating up in emerging markets. Nairobi-based HoneyCoin has raised $4.9 million to expand in Africa and push into Latin America and Asia. Honeycoin also holds multi-jurisdictional licenses.