Circle and the Safe Foundation are collaborating to support the adoption of USDC across DeFi and institutional self-custody.
The partnership positions USDC at the core of the Safe ecosystem, which currently powers over 4% Ethereum transactions.
Safe smart contracts hold $2.5 billion of USDC, reinforcing the platform's enterprise-grade infrastructure.
Circle and Safe have signed a partnership agreement, aiming to accelerate the adoption of USDC stablecoin by building enterprise-grade rails for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and self-custody.
Safe taps Circle's USDC in DeFi and institutional self-custody
Safe Foundation, a company securing over $60 billion in digital assets, and Circle, a financial technology entity and the issuer of USDC—the second-largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of $75 billion —have announced a strategic partnership to speed up the adoption of USDC among institutional investors.
The collaboration aims at promoting Safe as a leading "institution storage for USDC in self-custody and DeFi." According to the press release, both institutions have committed to building trusted rails to support the next generation of on-chain capital markets, particularly for USDC treasury management.
Safe's smart contracts already secure $2.5 billion of USDC, reinforcing the platform as an enterprise-grade infrastructure. This aligns with Circle's USDC as a regulated stablecoin while placing the stablecoin at the core of the Safe ecosystem.
Circle's Chief Commercial Officer, Kash Razzaghi, stated that Safe's smart contracts will "equip organizations with the tools they need to operate seamlessly in the next generation of capital markets."
Safe currently supports over 4% of all Ethereum-based transactions, offering institutional-grade security for large-scale treasury operations. The smart contracts also provide an unobstructed access to DeFi's deepest liquidity pools, primarily dominated by USDC.
"Institutional money is flowing into self-custody infrastructure and DeFi, and institutions need secure, scalable tools to keep up," Lukas Schor, Safe's co-founder, said.
Safe has experienced significant growth this year, with native transaction volumes reaching $1 trillion. Trading volume across Safe smart contracts hit an all-time high of $189.6 billion in the first quarter, according to the press release. The total number of smart contracts achieved a self-reported new milestone of 116.7 million transactions in the quarter, with more than $26.2 billion in decentralized exchange (DEX) volume.
Circle completed its initial public offering (IPO) in June, listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The IPO made history as the first major public listing of a stablecoin issuer, signaling growing mainstream adoption for blockchain-based businesses
