Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, is preparing to push into roughly 40 emerging and developing countries, chief executive Jeremy Allaire told Reuters on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok. The announcement signals that the second-largest stablecoin issuer sees its next growth phase outside the crypto trading world entirely.
“We’re moving from the early adopter phase of blockchain technology into the mainstream scaling phase,” Allaire said in the October 16 interview, pointing to rising organic demand for stablecoins across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East — from people and businesses looking to tap into an internet-based economy.
USDC’s position in the stablecoin race
Circle’s USDC holds about 25 percent of the stablecoin market, compared with roughly 60 percent for Tether’s USDT, according to figures cited by Reuters and Decrypt. USDC’s circulation rose 19 percent year over year to 73.3 billion USD in the second quarter.
The 40-market expansion is Circle’s attempt to close that gap by going where the dollar-pegged tokens are actually used day to day. In many developing economies, stablecoins function as practical dollar substitutes — for savings, remittances and cross-border payments — rather than as trading instruments. Reuters reported that Circle has resources for the push, including its 400-million-USD acquisition of payments firm Tazapay and a 100-million-USD strategic investment from Binance.
Regulatory tailwinds in the United States
Allaire also leaned on regulatory momentum at home. Circle secured a federal banking charter in July, a milestone that sent its stock higher, and has separately pursued a New York trust charter. The GENIUS Act, the landmark US stablecoin law, is slated to take effect in January, and Allaire called it “a watershed moment” that would give the world “legal digital dollars.”
The framing matters for the international push. A US federal charter plus clear statutory backing gives Circle a credibility pitch to regulators in emerging markets that offshore issuers cannot match — a potentially decisive advantage as developing nations draft their own stablecoin rules.
Not everyone in the industry shares the optimism about tax and policy treatment. In France, a separate 31.4 percent tax proposal targeting crypto-to-stablecoin conversions has drawn warnings from Chainalysis that such levies risk pushing activity offshore — a tension that Circle’s emerging-market expansion indirectly exploits.
Banks as competitors, AI agents as customers
Traditional banks are building their own stablecoins, a development Allaire framed as healthy competition. After a long stretch in which incumbents kept outsiders out, “they are no longer in charge, and the innovators are having their day,” he told Reuters.
He also credited artificial intelligence agents making tiny machine-to-machine payments with boosting USDC usage. Circle’s Arc network has been adopted by BlackRock, Visa and Standard Chartered, according to Reuters, and the company has been openly pushing to make USDC the currency of AI agents.
But Allaire warned that AI cuts both ways, raising the security stakes for financial infrastructure. “If you’re not concerned about it, then your head is in the sand, right?” he said.
The stablecoin payments wave
Circle’s expansion lands amid a surge of stablecoin payments news. This week alone, card issuer Marqeta and Coinbase announced a collaboration to enable stablecoin-backed card payments for businesses, and Visa said it is expanding stablecoin card issuing globally with StraitsX. A report this week also found that while stablecoin supply has stalled in 2026, payments volume rose by 45 percent to 480 billion USD — usage is growing even as the market’s raw size plateaus.
That distinction is the heart of Circle’s bet. The company is not counting on more speculators holding USDC; it is counting on more households and merchants in developing economies spending it. Forty new markets is the largest single geographic expansion in the company’s history, and Allaire’s choice of venue — the IMF and World Bank meetings rather than a crypto conference — was itself a statement about where he sees the business going.
What comes next
Circle did not publish a full list of the 40 target markets, but Allaire’s regional emphasis on Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East maps closely onto where dollar demand is strongest outside the banking system. Expect rollout announcements market by market, with local partnerships modeled on the Tazapay acquisition.
The stakes are straightforward: if stablecoins are becoming the rails for dollar payments in the developing world, the issuer with the deepest regulatory credibility and the widest distribution wins. Circle just made its move.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research before making any financial decisions.
announcing this at IMF and world bank meetings instead of a crypto conference says everything. 40 emerging markets, remittances and savings, that is the actual USDC business now. trading was just the onboarding funnel
25% market share vs tether at 60% and his plan is to fight for markets where the margin per user is fractions of a cent. bold but the tazapay and binance money gives him runway
payments volume up 45% to 480B while supply stalls is the stat people keep scrolling past. velocity is doing the work now, not balance sheet growth. much healthier signal for USDC long term
velocity over balance sheet growth right up until a redemption stress test hits. then everyone remembers the reserve attestation matters more than payment volume
40 emerging markets with tether sitting on 60 percent share is a street fight for scraps. tazapay rails help but USDT is already the default dollar in half those places
on the ground in accra that 60 percent tether share is real, people price rent in USDT like it is the local currency. circle sending tazapay after settlement rails instead of exchanges is the first move here that actually makes sense