Circle CEO Says USDC Stablecoin Is Not Rival to Visa, Mastercard

Key Highlights

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire says USDC is a neutral financial infrastructure, not a competitor to banks, Visa, or Mastercard.
Allaire describes stablecoins as network-effect platforms whose value grows as more institutions and developers integrate them.
Recent Visa and Mastercard partnerships show stablecoins moving deeper into regulated, real-world payment systems.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire says the company sees its dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC not as a competing payment product, but as neutral financial infrastructure designed to work alongside banks and card networks.

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allaire said Circle does not view payment giants such as Visa or Mastercard as rivals.

Instead, he described them as “significant partners,” stressing that stablecoins function more like shared platforms than closed financial products.

Allaire said “stablecoins are network-effect businesses,” and their usefulness grows as more developers, institutions, and payment providers integrate them. “We’re a neutral company. We don’t compete with banks, we don’t compete payment companies, we don’t compete exchanges,” he said.

Stablecoins as infrastructure, not competition

Allaire argued that stablecoins operate as utilities rather than traditional fintech products. As adoption expands, the cost of storing and moving money could fall toward zero, especially as automation and AI begin to handle payment flows.

“In that future world, where AI agents are doing the money movement, it’s going to be hard to know exactly what the payment business model is over that period of time,” he said, adding that the long-term structure of the payments industry remains uncertain.

He also addressed concerns that banks launching their own stablecoins could threaten USDC’s growth. According to Allaire, broader participation strengthens the overall ecosystem rather than weakening it. “The more people who connect to them, the more usage they get,” he said.

Circle’s USDC is currently the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with about $73.6 billion in circulation, behind Tether’s USDT at roughly $186.6 billion, according to DefiLlama data. The total stablecoin market stands at around $308.18 billion.

Regulation, growth outlook, and market context

When asked about the stalled Digital Asset Markets Clarity bill in the US Congress, Allaire said there is “clearly a bipartisan desire” to move forward.

He noted that the legislation goes beyond stablecoins and could shape how digital tokens integrate into capital markets, an area of interest for both traditional banks and crypto firms.

Allaire said Circle takes a conservative view on long-term growth assumptions, even as USDC circulation has grown roughly 80% year over year for two consecutive years. He said a compound annual growth rate of around 40% remains a “reasonable baseline.”

Circle went public in June 2025, pricing its IPO at $31 per share before opening at $69. The stock later peaked at $263.45 in May but has since retraced to around $72, according to Google Finance.

Partnerships highlight stablecoin momentum

Recent developments suggest stablecoins are increasingly integrating with traditional payment rails. In July, stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK partnered with Visa to enable stablecoin payouts via Visa Direct’s $1.7 trillion real-time payments network.

Earlier, in August, Mastercard and Circle launched USDC and EURC settlement services across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The move allows merchants to settle transactions directly in stablecoins, reducing settlement time and liquidity friction.

These alliances conform to the argument by Allaire that stablecoins are not supplanting financial systems, but are gradually integrated into them, which is a gradual change in the manner in which money flows around the world, without yet redefining the entire business model of payments.