Circle Positions USDC as the Payment Foundation for Agentic Commerce -- Q4 Revenue Up 77%, AI Agent Payments Emerge as New Growth Driver

Circle Declares Its Position as "Payment Infrastructure" for the AI Agent Economy

How Circle Is Marrying Stablecoins With Agentic Commerce - Digital Transactions

How Circle Is Marrying Stablecoins With Agentic Commerce

On February 25, 2026, stablecoin giant Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) reported its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial results. CEO Jeremy Allaire stated during the earnings call that agentic commerce -- where AI agents autonomously conduct transactions on the internet -- is becoming a new demand driver for USDC.

During the earnings call, Allaire expressed the view that an era of tens of billions of AI agents transacting on the internet is approaching, and that this will bring the most transformative change in the history of financial systems. Q4 revenue reached $770 million (up 77% year-over-year), with net income of $133 million -- a dramatic improvement from just $3 million the prior year.

Industry Context

Agentic commerce refers to systems where AI agents autonomously search, compare, purchase, and process payments for products on behalf of humans. The concept has gained rapid momentum since the second half of 2025, with payment and technology giants including Stripe, Google, and Mastercard moving to build out the necessary infrastructure.

Within this trend, stablecoins are rapidly emerging as a payment method of choice. AI agents cannot hold credit card numbers and do not have bank accounts. Stablecoins, by contrast, are programmable (capable of automated software control) and enable sub-second instant settlement on the blockchain. Industry consensus is solidifying around stablecoins as the most compatible payment method for AI agents.

Circle has proactively embraced this trend by joining the Agentic AI Foundation and participating in Google's A2A (Agent2Agent) protocol as well as AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol). The company has clearly shifted its positioning from stablecoin issuer to "financial infrastructure provider for the AI agent economy."

USDC's Rapid Growth and the Arc Network

Circle's financial performance provides quantitative evidence of agentic commerce's momentum. According to the Q4 2025 earnings report, USDC circulation reached $75.3 billion (up 72% year-over-year), while on-chain transaction volume expanded to $11.9 trillion (up 247%). Meaningful wallet count grew 59% year-over-year to 6.8 million, and USDC is now deployed across 30 blockchains.

According to PYMNTS.com, Circle positions itself not as a crypto issuer but as "middleware" for the global economy. Specifically, the company is building an "Internet Financial OS" composed of four layers.

Circle Payments Network (CPN). A real-time global payment network with 55 financial institutions currently participating and 74 more under review. Annualized transaction volume has reached $5.7 billion.

Arc. An enterprise-grade blockchain that has processed 166 million transactions on testnet (averaging 2.3 million per day). Mainnet is scheduled to launch in 2026. Allaire compared Arc to a "highway" that any asset issuer can use.

x402 protocol support. Circle has integrated x402, an HTTP-native payment standard, into its Gateway, enabling AI agents to execute micropayments simultaneously with API calls. The Nanopayments feature supports transactions as small as $0.000001.

StableFX and USYC. Real-time foreign exchange conversion and tokenized money market products extend stablecoin utility beyond payments.

Impact and Implications for E-Commerce Businesses

Circle's strategy is noteworthy for e-commerce businesses from three perspectives.

AI agent payment standardization is accelerating. Stripe has integrated x402 payments on Base, Visa has authorized merchant payments in USDC in the U.S., and Akeneo has partnered with Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite. The connection between traditional e-commerce platforms and stablecoin payments is advancing rapidly. Businesses should consider the possibility that USDC becomes the de facto standard payment method when AI agents discover and purchase products.

Cross-border transaction cost structures are changing. Traditional international payments required intermediary fees and processing times measured in days. Combining USDC with Arc enables sub-second instant settlement. For businesses operating cross-border e-commerce, significant reductions in payment costs and improvements in customer experience are expected.

A phased approach is pragmatic. There is no need for full-scale stablecoin payment adoption at this point. The first step is to add a USDC payment option via Stripe or Coinbase Commerce and prepare the environment to handle purchase requests from AI agents. It is recommended to monitor the x402 protocol while advancing agent-readiness of your own APIs (structured data provision and programmable checkout flows).

Conclusion

Circle's earnings demonstrate that stablecoins are beginning to function as the "payment rails" for agentic commerce. The 247% increase in on-chain transaction volume reflects the rapid expansion of machine-to-machine payments by AI agents.

Circle has set a target of 40% average annual growth in USDC circulation for 2026, with the Arc mainnet launch serving as a critical milestone toward that goal. For e-commerce businesses, now is the time to consider payment strategies for the AI agent era -- especially as existing payment partners like Stripe and Visa are actively building out stablecoin support.