Circle Internet Group paid $819 million to more than 150 partners distributing USDC in the first half of 2026, according to Circle president Kash Razzaghi, in a payment that works like revenue sharing from the reserve income behind USDC. The payment encourages partners to keep USDC as their default dollar token, though Circle did not disclose how the amount is split among them. As of October 18, Ripple's RLUSD had a market cap of around $2.4 billion versus $72.3 billion for USDC, and about $58 million in 24-hour trading compared with $8.4 billion for USDC. Ripple is narrowing the gap through integrations such as Cross River Bank's service, which is limited to some U.S. states and carries no exclusive terms or volume guarantees. XRP was trading at about $1.30, down 6.9% over the past week.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Original headline: Circle Paid Its Partners $819 Million in Six Months . Can Ripple RLUSD Compete ?
Read the original on aol.com ↗
Keywords
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related news
- Deutsche Bank targets Asia crypto custody expansion in 2027 as German launch nears
Deutsche Bank plans to extend its crypto custody service to Asia in 2027, with a German launch expected within weeks but still subject to regulatory approval. The initial offering will support bitcoin, ether and stablecoins USDC, EURC and EURAU, with the bank managing clients' wallets and private keys so corporate and institutional clients can hold and transfer crypto. The bank also plans stablecoin conversion, tokenized deposits and digital bond issuance services, as part of a target of roughly 8% compound annual revenue growth in its corporate bank from 2025 to 2028. It received BaFin authorization under MiCA on October 12 and has worked with Bitpanda and Taurus, joining rivals such as Standard Chartered and BBVA in offering crypto custody.
- Is Solana Too Cheap to Ignore at Today's Prices?
Crypto prices are recovering after a year-long slump: as of Oct. 16, Bitcoin was up 28% over three months, while Solana gained 40% but remained 65% below its all-time high from last year, trading around $105. The author argues this decline does not reflect Solana's ecosystem growth, as the chain generated more fees than any other network over the past 30 days, its stablecoin supply hit an all-time high of $16.5 billion, and it ranks third in tokenized asset value. Samsung named Solana as a partner for USDC access through Samsung Wallet, and Securitize launched tokenized versions of 12 U.S. megacap stocks on the chain. The author also notes risks, including dependence on crypto sentiment, a 2025 peak driven by meme coin activity, and uncertain adoption, but considers Solana worth a closer look for investors willing to take on risk.
- Stablecoin supply stalls, but payments jump 45% as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe connect crypto to cash
According to blockchain analytics firm Allium, stablecoin supply barely grew this year, reaching about $305 billion by end-September (up 0.4% year to date), while stablecoin payments hit $482 billion in the first nine months, up 45% from a year earlier. The number of payments rose 71% to over 1 billion, and stablecoin-linked card spending reached $3.9 billion, ten times the prior year's level, with purchases under $50 accounting for 84% of the increase in card transactions. This week, Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform with BVNK, Stripe partnered with Plasma on multi-currency cards, and Visa said Inyo Global became the first provider to use Visa Direct's stablecoin prefunding service commercially. Still, only $2.4 trillion, or 2.5%, of $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers was classified as end-user activity, and stablecoin cards accounted for just 0.03% of Visa's $4 trillion in second-quarter payment volume.
- Solana Now Holds $15.5 Billion in Stablecoins. How Far Behind Ethereum Is It?
According to DeFiLlama, Solana holds $15.5 billion in U.S. dollar stablecoins as of October 17, 2026, while Ethereum has about $143.9 billion, roughly 9.3 times larger. Yet SOL fell 6.5% over the past week to $103, and U.S. spot Solana ETFs have recorded net outflows in every session since October 5, totaling $54.9 million through October 16. The article argues stablecoin balances do not directly indicate SOL demand, since parked dollars, concentrated holdings and minimal network fees make the link weak. Solana ETF net assets fell from $1.96 billion on September 25 to $1.62 billion by October 16, though total net inflows still stand at $1.56 billion. The Alpenglow upgrade, scheduled for mainnet activation on October 21, aims to cut transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds, but traders may already have priced it in.
- Banks Hold a Lever Over Stablecoin Adoption, BIS Economists Say
A new BIS working paper using US data from 2019 to 2025 finds that when banks raise deposit rates, stablecoin market growth slows. Over a typical 10-week span, stablecoin market capitalisation grew about 15%, but a one-basis-point rise in deposit rates cut that to roughly 12% under the baseline estimate and about 6% under a method designed to isolate cause and effect. The authors exploited the fact that banks rarely raise savings rates until the federal funds rate passes about 3%, and the link was stronger for Circle's USDC than for Tether's USDT. They say regulators should weigh whether stablecoin issuers can pay holders yield, and note the paper reflects the authors' views, not necessarily the BIS's.
- As Bitcoin Matures, Altcoins Face a Reckoning. Here's Which Ones Have a Real Use.
The article argues many altcoins lack a real investment case, citing CoinGecko research that 53% of tokens tracked from mid-2021 through 2025 had failed. Over the 30-day period, XRP Ledger generated just $34,286 in fees, while Ripple earned $7.3 million in reserve income from its RLUSD stablecoin. Ethereum holds $144.6 billion in stablecoins and $50.2 billion in DeFi value locked, and Solana holds $15.9 billion and $5.9 billion, which the article sees as real demand. By contrast, Cardano has $64.9 million in DeFi value locked, Shibarium collected $13.04 in fees, and all Dogecoin fees go to miners. The article concludes Bitcoin, as a scarce asset with no issuer, remains the core holding.
Related markets
Latest news
- JPMorgan's JPM Coin, representing dollar deposits, is coming to Ethereum: Bloomberg
JPMorgan will make JPM Coin, a token representing its dollar deposits, available to institutional clients on Ethereum, according to Bloomberg. The bank says Ethereum's liquidity makes it attractive to crypto companies seeking blockchain payments and to financial firms settling trades or backing tokenized assets. The move extends JPMorgan's blockchain work beyond Base and its private Kinexys network, which processes more than $7 billion daily. The bank did not say when the token will go live on Ethereum. Meanwhile, JPMorgan is among US banks planning a shared tokenized deposit network, but it was not on Swift's list of 17 banks preparing live transactions on its blockchain ledger in July.
- Cerrado Gold Reports 21% Year-Over-Year Increase in Q3 2026 Production Results at Minera Don Nicolas
Cerrado Gold reported Q3 2026 production of 16,685 GEO at the Minera Don Nicolas (MDN) mine in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, up 21% from 13,832 GEO in Q3 2025. Year-to-date output reached 44,942 GEO, up 23% from 36,432 GEO in the comparable 2025 period. Heap leach output held steady at 9,649 GEO, while CIL output rose to 7,036 GEO as higher-grade Calandrias material, generally above 2.5 g/t gold, was routed to the Martinetas mill. Laboratory tests on selected material showed gold recoveries of up to 95%, versus about 60% expected from heap leaching, and the company now expects full-year 2026 production at the upper end of its 50,000 to 60,000 GEO guidance while targeting a new PEA by late Q1 2027.
- Is Visa Stock Still a Buy After Gaining 14% This Year?
Visa shares hit an all-time high of $401, up about 12% over the past two weeks from $359 at the end of September and up 14% year to date. Key catalysts include approval from the People's Bank of China to set up a bankcard clearing institution in China and the move of Visa Direct's stablecoin to commercial deployment on Oct. 15. Baird and BMO Capital both raised their price targets. Visa reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Oct. 27 and has raised its dividend every year since 2009, last year by 14% to $0.67 per share. The author still considers the stock a buy ahead of earnings, citing a forward P/E of 24.
- Five things to watch in markets in the week ahead
Markets start the week with AI stocks under pressure after hotter-than-expected September inflation raised expectations of higher US rates and fed worries about debt-funded AI spending. Last week the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 11.41% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 4.48%, with CoreWeave shedding about a quarter of its value and Oracle down 9.31%. Earnings are in focus, with SpaceX and Netflix reporting on Tuesday and Meta and Tesla on Wednesday after the close. Netflix reportedly plans to cut around 6% of its workforce, roughly 1,000 roles, its biggest reduction since 2022. SpaceX has also agreed to buy spectrum licenses from Grain Management for about $8 billion, a move into the wireless market.
- eMemory/PUFsecurity Showcases OCP S.A.F.E.-Approved PUFrt at OCP Global Summit, Strengthening AI Data Center Security with Caliptra
PUFsecurity, a subsidiary of eMemory Technology, was featured at Microsoft's Caliptra Workshop on Oct. 12, the opening day of the 2026 OCP Global Summit, which drew nearly 400 attendees. Its PUFrt received OCP S.A.F.E. Scope 3 approval after an independent assessment of its resistance to physical attacks such as fault injection and side-channel attacks, and is now listed on the OCP Marketplace. PUFrt provides the physical security foundation for Caliptra, an open-source hardware Root-of-Trust architecture, from key generation to chip mass-production testing. It has already been integrated into Caliptra products from ASPEED and security systems from several memory makers and networking chip vendors. The company says the milestone advances hardware security for cloud and AI infrastructure.
- Crypto vault deposits top $10 billion as lending risks draw regulatory scrutiny
Deposits into crypto lending vaults have risen from $4 billion at the start of last year to more than $10 billion, according to the Financial Times. Each vault is run by a 'curator' who selects lending strategies through smart contracts on DeFi platforms, sets risk limits and collects fees, with typical returns of 3% to 10% and riskier strategies reaching 20% or more. Risks include illiquid or hard-to-sell collateral, automatic liquidations, hacks and coding errors, while investors may focus on headline yields. Fintechs, digital asset treasury firms and hedge funds are among the main depositors, and Bitcoin lender Two Prime launched a vault on Pareto targeting 1.5% to 2% yields, with a minimum deposit of 5 WBTC and about $10 million of its own capital absorbing initial losses. U.S. and European regulators are examining whether existing rules should apply, and the SEC has questioned vaults that hold securities.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.