Circle Acquires Hashnote, Unveils New USYC Fund

Circle, the issuer of one of the largest stablecoins, USDC, has announced its acquisition of Hashnote, the company behind the USYC token.

According to RWA.xyz, USYC is the world’s largest tokenized treasury and money market fund, managing assets worth $1.52 billion.

USYC and USDC Integration: What It Means for the Market

Circle plans to fully integrate USYC with USDC, creating a unified bridge between tokenized money market assets and one of the world’s most liquid stablecoins. This will allow USYC to serve as yield-bearing collateral on crypto exchanges and among custodians and prime brokers.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire called the integration of USYC and Hashnote into the Circle platform a pivotal step for the stablecoin market.

“We helped invent tokenized cash, and are now leading the way in tokenized money markets, both of which we believe will become essential to the future of the global financial system. Circle’s acquisition of Hashnote and our strategic partnership with DRW-affiliate Cumberland are crucial to driving and delivering these products at scale,” he added.

USYC is a tokenized money market fund that blends high yield with security, providing investors access to short-term treasury obligations. Backed by major trading firms and derivatives exchanges, USYC is emerging as a valuable tool for efficient collateral management.

“Joining Circle increases our ability to rapidly scale adoption by pairing USDC, a widely-used, liquid payment and trading stablecoin, with USYC, a safe, Tokenized Money Market Fund for yield-bearing collateral,” Hashnote founder and CEO Leo Mizuhara said.

A key component of this deal is Circle’s strategic partnership with Cumberland, a DRW affiliate and one of the largest institutional cryptocurrency traders. Cumberland will expand liquidity and improve settlement processes for USDC and USYC wherever possible.

As part of its service expansion, Circle also announced the deployment of native USDC on Canton, a leading public network for confidential and secure financial applications. Canton supports over $3.6 trillion in tokenized assets and $1.5 trillion in monthly repo operations and is used by top banks, asset managers, and exchanges.

The integration of USYC and USDC with Canton will ensure 24/7 asset availability and instant conversion between collateral and cash on traditional financial markets operating on blockchain technology.

CryptoQuant has recently reported that USDC liquidity hit its highest level since February 2023 after minting over 250 million tokens. The analysts speculated that it was related to a partnership between Circle and Cumberland.