Circle has posted Q1 2026 results showing a 263% surge in USDC transaction volume, alongside revenue growth and plans to build out blockchain rails and agentic AI infrastructure.
Circle saw its on-chain transaction volume of USDC increase to $21.5tn as the stablecoin issuer sets out to become the leading infrastructure provider for on-chain finance.
Circle’s Q1 2026 results, released on 11 May, showed USDC transaction volume up 263% and circulation up 28% YoY to $77bn by quarter-end.
As the second-largest stablecoin by market cap in circulation, behind Tether’s USDT, Circle’s USDC has been adopted by the likes of Visa and Stripe to spearhead stablecoin payment pilots to develop use cases for payouts, merchant acceptance and bank settlements.
Circle saw its total revenue and reserve income increase by 20% to $694m YoY, while the company generated $151m in adjusted EBITDA, a 24% increase from the same period last year. Circle generated $42m in other revenue, a $21m YoY increase.
USDC was the primary driver of its $653m in revenue income increasing by 17%, however net income from continuing operations decreased 15% to $55m.
Circle boosted USDC circulation and adoption with the Circle Payment Network (CPN), a blockchain platform which enables financial institutions to perform cross-border payments with USDC on a distributed ledger for faster settlements as an alternative to traditional payment rails, such as SWIFT.
The company revealed in its Q1 report that CPN made $8.3bn in annualised transaction volume based on trailing 30 day activity as of March 31, 2026.
In April, Circle expanded its payment products with the launch of ‘Managed Payments’, which allows financial institutions to launch stablecoin payments without managing digital assets.
Circle CEO, Jeremy Allaire, stated in a Q1 earnings call that USDC is becoming the “invisible settlement layer” for payment and retail companies.
“We are seeing a massive shift,” he said. “While trading remains a core component, the 263% surge in on-chain volume is being driven by integration into corporate treasuries and payment rails.
“For example, our partnerships with Meta and DoorDash, and the embedding of USDC into enterprise systems like Kyriba, are moving us toward a reality where USDC is the ‘invisible’ settlement layer for the global economy.”
ARC blockchain builds on Circle’s infrastructure ambition
Within the Q1 financial results, Circle announced it raised $222m in a presale of the ARC token, which runs on Circle’s Layer-1 public blockchain.
The presale funding was backed by BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Bullish, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more, which raised the ARC token’s value to $3bn.
In an ARC Token Whitepaper, issued on 11 May, Circle outlines five core principles for the ARC token to not only serve as a financial asset, but as a “coordination layer” in preparation to provide its stablecoin infrastructure to traditional firms across the globe.
The five core principles are economic governance, traditional or proof of stake by May 2028, fee capture to convert ‘gas’ fees from USDC to ARC, platform utility incentives to promote cross-chain protocols, and supporting the developing agentic economy to make ARC blockchain programmable for agentic commerce.
“With the ARC token presale, momentum behind the Arc network, and the launch of our Agent Stack, we are building trusted infrastructure for AI-native economic activity and a more programmable internet financial system,” said Allaire.
Preparing for the agentic economy
As the ARC blockchain will look to facilitate agentic commerce, Circle revealed in its Q1 financial report it is “building for an agent-led future”.
The company announced it will develop critical agent platform capabilities, which includes nano-payments for the Circle gateway.
These developments will see agent wallets support USDC payments across multiple blockchain networks and will be programmed to different AI agents, enabling merchants to create new APIs designed for customers.
“We aren’t just building for AI agents; we are becoming one of the first AI-native enterprises,” said Allaire.
“As of this quarter, 85% of our employees are active weekly users of AI coding tools, and we’ve deployed over 600 AI-native applications internally since February. This is how we scale a global financial platform with extreme efficiency.”
