Circle’s third-quarter accounts, published on Wednesday, show the company paid $409.2 million in distribution and transaction costs against $657.6 million of reserve income. That is 62.2% of what USDC earned going to the partners who hold and move it, leaving Circle $248.5 million.
The same week, Stripe’s developer documentation quietly confirmed what its payment rails now run on. Stripe lists OUSD, the Open USD stablecoin, across its entire money stack, from Treasury balances through payouts to more than 160 countries and card issuing. OUSD went live on 30 September, and one of its five equal owners is Coinbase.
Circle issues the token, holds the reserves, runs compliance and carries the regulatory risk, and keeps 37.8% of what the float earns. Source: Circle Q3 2026 earnings release · Chart: FinanceFeedsCircle Paid Out 62.2% of Reserve Income in Q3
That 62.2% ratio is not a one-quarter problem. It has sat between 61.4% and 62.9% for five consecutive quarters, so the distribution load has held steady while the income it comes out of has shrunk.
Reserve income fell 7.5% year over year as the reserve return rate dropped 61 basis points to 3.5%. End-of-period USDC in circulation finished flat at $73.9 billion and Circle’s stablecoin market share fell 183 basis points to 27%. The full set of Q3 figures and the 5% staff cut ran on FinanceFeeds on Wednesday.
A falling reserve yield shrinks the pie without shrinking the slice that leaves, which is why the squeeze shows up in dollars rather than in this ratio. Source: Circle Q3 2026 earnings release · Chart: FinanceFeedsOUSD Sends Reserve Earnings to Partners by Design
Under Circle’s 2023 agreement, Coinbase takes all reserve income on USDC held on its platform and half the residual income on USDC held elsewhere, Forbes reported. Circle renewed that arrangement this year and ruled out quarterly stablecoin payouts.
OUSD makes that revenue share into the product itself rather than a cost to be negotiated down. Partners receive nearly all reserve earnings after a management fee, minting and redemption are free, and equity is handed out over four to five years according to the supply and activity each partner generates. Bridge, which Stripe owns, issues the token and publishes the reserve data.
The five anchor owners hold equal stakes, and they are Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa. They committed more than $1 billion to seed liquidity, and the network lists over 200 partners including Standard Chartered, Ripple and Google. BlackRock sits among the reserve backers alongside BNY and Lead Bank rather than among the equity anchors.
Coinbase Now Sits on Both Sides
Coinbase remains the partner taking most of Circle’s distribution payments, according to Forbes, and now owns a fifth of a competing issuer. Forbes put the question directly, asking whether Coinbase will keep driving USDC growth on the same terms while holding equity in a rival. Coinbase and Visa have both said they remain committed to supporting several stablecoins, USDC among them.
Circle’s other large distributor has an arrangement of its own that runs in both directions. The company paid Binance a $60.25 million upfront fee under the November 2024 agreement, and Binance-related distribution costs rose $152.1 million during 2025. Binance then took a $100 million Circle stake locked up for two years in September.
Investor Takeaway
OUSD turns distribution economics into equity, so the figure to watch is whether Coinbase keeps growing USDC balances at the old rate while owning part of a rival.
Stripe Has Built Its Stack Around OUSD
Stripe’s documentation describes OUSD as an open infrastructure stablecoin supported across the lifecycle of money. Its payouts guide offers sending stablecoins to any external crypto wallet in more than 160 countries, a figure Stripe first published on 16 October alongside stablecoin card issuing in 27 EU countries and more than 65 worldwide, with 100 targeted by the end of 2026.
The stack extends well past payments into treasury, cards, billing and agentic transactions. Stripe offers OUSD balances in Treasury with rewards attached, stablecoin-backed cards on Issuing, subscription billing, and machine payments through its Machine Payments Protocol. Circle has been building the equivalent itself, launching Arc mainnet in September and expanding across 40 markets.
Whether OUSD Rewards Count as Yield Is Untested
The GENIUS Act bars payment stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly to the holders of their tokens. OUSD routes reserve earnings to partners instead, and Stripe says partners can earn rewards based on activity including balances held on Stripe. Forbes notes that whether balance-linked rewards amount to yield remains an open regulatory question.
Clear Street analysts Owen Lau and Nikhil Vijay sized the economics for CryptoSlate. On $1 billion of USDC earning a 3.5% reserve return, roughly $35 million of gross annual income, a high-double-digit partner share would leave Circle about $4 million to $7 million.
OUSD Starts From Almost Nothing
Scale still favors the incumbents by a margin no new entrant closes quickly. Dollar stablecoins totaled about $308.85 billion on 5 October, with Tether at 59.6% and USDC at 24.1%, and no other token above 2.3%.
Circle also holds a set of advantages that a token launched eight weeks ago cannot simply buy. It issues under a US framework, runs the euro-backed EURC, moved $13.9 trillion of on-chain volume last quarter and reported $41.3 billion of annualized payment volume on its own network. The threat is to the price Circle pays for distribution rather than to USDC’s existence.
Investor Takeaway
Circle’s distribution cost ratio decides whether OUSD matters, so watch whether it breaks below 61% or above 63% in the fourth quarter.