Circle Posts $701M in Quarterly Revenue and Dates Arc for September

Circle put out second-quarter results on 5 August 2026, a date it had flagged on 21 July, and the headline numbers point in two directions at once. Total revenue and reserve income came to $701 million, up 7% on a year earlier, alongside $48 million in net income from continuing operations. USDC in circulation ended the quarter at $73.3 billion, 19% higher year on year, and on-chain transaction volume rose 151% to $14.8 trillion. The company also said it had renewed its distribution agreement with Coinbase on existing terms for three more years, through 2029, and gave 16 September as the public mainnet date for Arc, the blockchain it has been building. Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen ruled out quarterly dividends.

A $701M quarter, a $530M swing

Total revenue and reserve income, the fees Circle charges plus the interest earned on the short-term assets backing USDC, grew 7% on the same quarter a year earlier. Net income from continuing operations of $48 million was a $530 million improvement year on year, and the company put that chiefly down to lower stock-based compensation after its initial public offering. Adjusted EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, was $143 million, up 8%. Set the $701 million top line against the float, though. The reading changes. Revenue growth of 7% ran well behind the 19% growth in USDC outstanding over the same period, and that gap sits at the center of how the business is read.

A $73.3B float moving $14.8 trillion

USDC in circulation reached $73.3 billion at quarter-end. On-chain transaction volume, the value of USDC transfers settled on public blockchains, was $14.8 trillion, up 151% and the fastest-growing figure in the release. The Circle Payments Network, the company's settlement layer for institutional payments, ran at an annualized transaction volume of $14.7 billion, 76% higher than the previous quarter, with 175 institutions enrolled. Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire tied the quarter to the company's federal trust bank charter and to two launches, saying: "We received our federal trust bank charter; Arc is launching on public mainnet September 16th; we launched the Agent Stack to put programmable money at the center of the agentic economy."

Coinbase renewed through 2029

The agreement under which Coinbase distributes USDC was renewed on existing terms for three more years, running through 2029. About 30% of USDC in circulation sits on the exchange's platform, which makes Coinbase both the largest single venue for the token and the largest external claim on the reserve income it generates. Renewing on existing terms means Circle did not use the negotiation to change that split. Fox-Geen ruled out paying a quarterly dividend, saying the returns from reinvesting in the platform would be "far greater" than returning cash to shareholders.

What Comes Next: A 16 September Mainnet and Eleven Founding Validators

Arc goes live on public mainnet on 16 September with 11 founding validators, the entities that will operate nodes and confirm blocks on the network. BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa and DTCC are among them, a roster drawn from asset management, card networks and post-trade infrastructure rather than from crypto-native operators. That list is the clearest signal in the release of who Circle expects to use the chain, and the September date is the first hard deadline the company has put on it. What the release did not do is set any timetable for returning capital: the dividend question was answered for this quarter only, and the reinvestment case will be measured against a revenue line growing at less than half the rate of the float behind it.