Binance Invests $100 Million in Circle

Binance has made a $100 million strategic equity investment in Circle, as the two companies enter a new, five-year agreement to promote Circle’s stablecoins USDC on the Binance platform.

Circle will also pay a monthly fee to Binance, based on a percentage of the amount of USDC held through Circle’s wallet infrastructure service, according to a filing. Binance acquired the shares on Sept.17 at $80.84 per share in a private placement, reflecting a 5% discount to Circle’s market price prior to closing. Circle shares rose 0.1% Tuesday to trade at $94.60 per share.

Binance, the biggest crypto exchange globally, is a major distribution platform for Circle, making it important for Circle to court Binance. Of the $75 billion USDC stablecoins in market circulation, about $12 billion are held on Binance, according to data estimates from Blockworks. Coinbase, a longtime Circle partner and the biggest distributor of Circle’s USDC stablecoins, recently joined Open Standard, a consortium backed by Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard, which issues a new stablecoin OpenUSD.