INTEL: Circle payments network volume tops $58 billion annualized, up from $23 billion
Circle said its Circle Payments Network (CPN) reached more than $58 billion in annualized payment volume as of October 30, up from $23 billion on July 31, a rise of over 150%. The company disclosed the figures on its third-quarter earnings call, and CEO Jeremy Allaire said on X that Q3 earnings were wrapped, pointing to a highlights video.
Circle said 205 financial institutions have joined CPN and that it expects the network to contribute meaningful revenue in 2027. At the end of the third quarter, CPN’s annualized payment volume stood at $41 billion, roughly 15 times the level a year earlier.
Arc Sectors in development
Circle is building a sectors feature for Arc, its blockchain, to give different kinds of financial activity dedicated lanes. The planned sectors are:
- a privacy sector for institutions, with selective confidentiality and disclosure;
- a payments sector targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second;
- an AI agent sector with identity verification and audit trails.
Circle expects that by the first quarter of 2027, AI agents will be able to be discovered, hired, paid and trusted on Arc.
The Arc mainnet went live on September 16 with 11 founding validators and more than 100 applications. As of late October, USDC, cirBTC and EURC on Arc totaled about $1.5 billion. More than $30 billion in USDC has moved on the network since launch, with roughly 500,000 transactions a day.
USDC figures for the quarter
USDC accounted for 79% of stablecoin on-chain transaction volume in the third quarter, compared with 66% a year earlier. On-chain USDC volume was $13.9 trillion, up 49% year on year. Mint and redemption activity reached a record of about $208 billion, up 42%. The reserve return rate was 3.54%, down 61 basis points from a year earlier.
Circle kept its 2026 guidance, including other revenue of $310 million to $330 million, which includes revenue from the ARC token presale, and an RLDC margin of 41.7% to 43.7%.
