Binance bought 1,237,011 Circle Class A shares for $100 million in an unregistered private placement that closed Sept. 17, paying $80.84 per share. The transaction was disclosed in Circle's Sept. 22 Securities and Exchange Commission filing and accompanies a five-year commercial arrangement under which Binance will promote USD Coin, or USDC, across its platform. Circle will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee calculated as a percentage of USDC held through Circle's Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure. Binance cannot sell, transfer, pledge or hedge its Circle stake for two years, subject to specified early-termination provisions and customary exceptions, although it retains voting rights. Circle shares, listed on the New York Stock Exchange as CRCL, closed at $94.29 on Sept. 21 and rose more than 1.3% in premarket trading after the filing became public, valuing Binance's holding at about $116.9 million. The agreement replaces partnerships signed in November 2024 and August 2025. It closed one day after Circle launched Arc's public mainnet, a layer-1 blockchain that uses USDC as its gas token, where Binance provides on-ramp access and BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard and Visa are founding validators.