☕️ Circle reveals USDC economics as stablecoin competition mounts Circle detailed $819 million in partner payouts for the first half of 2026 as tech firms and payment networks expand competing stablecoin initiatives.
1. Circle discloses $819M in H1 payouts to USDC distribution partners — Circle brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, distributing 59% of it to network partners as onchain $USDC transaction volume surpassed $36 trillion. 2. Visa, Stripe, and OKX deploy enterprise infrastructure around OUSD — Open Standard launched OUSD with over $1 billion in committed backing, prompting Visa to beta-test native minting tools and OKX to launch zero-fee conversions. 3. Ethereum schedules Glamsterdam upgrade on Hoodi testnet for Oct. 26 — The deployment activates at epoch 132,352, introducing enshrined proposer-builder separation and lifting the testnet gas limit to 200M. 4. a16z Crypto launches Aerie framework for post-quantum aggregation — The lattice-based SNARK aggregates over 50,000 Falcon signatures per second on commodity hardware, offering proof-of-stake chains an alternative to recursive hash-based proofs. 5. Kraken Pro introduces Unified Margin Wallet to European traders — Clients in the European Economic Area can now aggregate spot, margin, Earn, and futures balances into a single collateral pool that accepts over 40 digital assets, USD, EUR, and gold. 6. Jack Henry integrates Google Cloud Universal Ledger for tokenized deposits — The partnership allows community banks and credit unions to access 24/7 programmable settlement and multilateral netting without pre-funding liquidity. 7. Hyperscale Data tokenizes physical silver on Ault Blockchain — The firm tokenized 5,000 troy ounces of silver and plans to offer up to $33.5 million of tokenized preferred stock to fund an AI data center in Michigan.
📊 Bitcoin traded at $81,550 (−0.7%), Ethereum at $2,436 (−1.1%), and total market capitalization fell to $2.70T as Fear & Greed registered 55.
