--- title: "Circle built a blockchain for AI agents to pay each other; its income is still Treasury yield" description: "AI agents are already paying each other by the hundreds of millions on Circle's new Arc chain, at about 30 cents a payment. Circle still earns about 95% of its revenue from interest on the Treasuries backing USDC, and Wednesday's consumer-price index print moves that line, not the micropayments." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Money" published: 2026-10-13T19:26:02.787Z modified: 2026-10-13T19:26:02.787Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/circle-built-a-blockchain-for-ai-agents-to-pay-each-other-its-income-is-still-treasury-yield language: en keywords: "Stablecoins, Circle, AI Agents, Blockchain, Interest Rates, Payments" --- # Circle built a blockchain for AI agents to pay each other; its income is still Treasury yield > AI agents are already paying each other by the hundreds of millions on Circle's new Arc chain, at about 30 cents a payment. Circle still earns about 95% of its revenue from interest on the Treasuries backing USDC, and Wednesday's consumer-price index print moves that line, not the micropayments. ## The agents are already paying each other The agent economy finally has transaction numbers, and they come from the company selling the rail. Kash Razzaghi, chief commercial officer of [Circle](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/circle), the issuer of the USDC digital dollar, [told Intercontinental Exchange's Inside the ICE House podcast on October 9](https://finance.yahoo.com/video/circle-cco-kash-razzaghi-arc-143250733.html) that the first payment between two AI agents came earlier this year: one agent bought a weather data set from another [1]. Hundreds of millions of agent-to-agent payments have followed, averaging about 30 cents, mostly for API calls and data [1]. ## Agents need a rail built for machines Agents, in Razzaghi's telling, carry no brand memory: they choose whatever is cheapest, fastest and most secure, so a payment must land instantly and cannot be clawed back [1]. Arc, [the blockchain Circle took live on September 16](https://cryptobriefing.com/circle-launches-arc-mainnet-blackrock-visa-other-founding-validators/), is built for that machine behavior: fees are paid in USDC rather than a volatile token, a payment settles irreversibly in under a second, and agent wallets ship with spending limits and nanopayments [2][3]. Its founding validators are BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Intercontinental Exchange, Mastercard, Visa and Standard Chartered [2][3]. Agents already settle in USDC elsewhere, which Circle says, citing Dune data, [carries 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/circle-launches-arc-mainnet-blackrock-145602831.html) [3]. More than 1,200 projects are building on the chain [2]. ## The rail is live; the revenue is not The June quarter prices the gap. [USDC moved $14.8 trillion on-chain, up 151% from a year earlier](https://cryptobriefing.com/circle-usdc-14-trillion-transaction-volume/) [4]. Circle's fee for moving it was $5.3 million, against $667.7 million of interest on the Treasuries backing the coin, out of $701.3 million of revenue [4][8]. That interest line is why this page called Circle a Treasury fund wearing a payments logo on October 11. *Chart: **Ninety-five cents of Circle's revenue dollar is Treasury interest** Stack chart of Circle's Q2 2026 revenue, showing reserve interest of 667.7 million dollars dominating over 28.3 million of other fees and 5.3 million of transaction fees* *Q2 2026 revenue in US$ millions; other fees are total revenue less reserve interest and transaction fees. Sources: Crypto Briefing and Forex Crunch, from Circle's SEC filings. [4][8]* The interest rides two inputs: $73.3 billion of USDC in circulation at the end of June, and a reserve yield near 3.5% [4]. [The one fee line growing is the Circle Payments Network, Circle's near-real-time cross-border payments service, at $14.7 billion annualized across 175 institutions, up 76% quarter over quarter](https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/10/circle-usdc-earnings-bet-us-interest-rates/) [2][4]. *Chart: **Circle's revenue flattened through 2026 after a strong 2025** Column chart of Circle's quarterly revenue from Q3 2024 to Q2 2026 in millions of dollars, climbing steeply through 2025 and flattening near 700 million through 2026* *Total revenue, US$ millions per quarter, from Circle's SEC filings. [5]* ## Wednesday moves the yield, not the agents [September's consumer-price index lands Wednesday](https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/news/47431/2026-10-13-the-us-dollar-and-gold-face-different-tests-in-wednesday-s-inflation-data.html), and it moves the line that pays Circle. The Fed has already raised rates this autumn, and [Goldman Sachs](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/goldman-sachs) expects one more quarter-point hike in December [6]. Nothing in that print touches the 30-cent payments, which is the point: CRCL, Circle's New York Stock Exchange-listed stock, trades today as a rates instrument with an unpriced option on agent payments [8]. The validator list underlines the wager, because ICE, Visa and Mastercard run the card and clearing rails that a near-free payment network competes with [2][7]. The stock still fell on launch day, [slipping more than 6% when the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY crypto market-structure bill the day before](https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/circle-stock-slips-despite-blackrock-mastercard-visa-announcement) [7]. ## The watch-list is short and mostly rates-shaped The watch-list is short. Arc's agent payments have no disclosed revenue line of their own yet [4]. The payments network is the one fee line growing [4]. And Wednesday's print moves that $667.7 million interest line whichever way inflation lands [6][8]. ## Takeaway Circle's agent payments rail is real and growing, but its revenue is still almost entirely Treasury interest on USDC reserves, so Wednesday's CPI print moves the stock more than the 30-cent payments do. ## Sources 1. [Yahoo Finance, Circle CCO Kash Razzaghi on Arc, AI Agents and the Race to Make Money Instant, 9 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/video/circle-cco-kash-razzaghi-arc-143250733.html) 2. [Crypto Briefing, Circle launches Arc mainnet with BlackRock, Visa and other founding validators, 16 September 2026](https://cryptobriefing.com/circle-launches-arc-mainnet-blackrock-visa-other-founding-validators/) 3. [Decrypt via Yahoo Finance, Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, DTCC and Visa as Validators, 16 September 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/circle-launches-arc-mainnet-blackrock-145602831.html) 4. [Crypto Briefing, Circle reports $14 trillion-plus in USDC activity as volume grows 151%, 8 October 2026](https://cryptobriefing.com/circle-usdc-14-trillion-transaction-volume/) 5. [Circle, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 13 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001876042) 6. [Exchange Rates UK, The US Dollar And Gold Face Different Tests In Wednesday's Inflation Data, 13 October 2026](https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/news/47431/2026-10-13-the-us-dollar-and-gold-face-different-tests-in-wednesday-s-inflation-data.html) 7. [TheStreet, Circle stock slips despite BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa announcement, 16 September 2026](https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/circle-stock-slips-despite-blackrock-mastercard-visa-announcement) 8. [Forex Crunch, Circle's USDC earnings are really a bet on US interest rates, 10 October 2026](https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/10/circle-usdc-earnings-bet-us-interest-rates/) --- Circle built a blockchain for AI agents to pay each other; its income is still Treasury yield — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/circle-built-a-blockchain-for-ai-agents-to-pay-each-other-its-income-is-still-treasury-yield