Circle targets about 50 emerging markets as USDC demand rises across Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East

Circle is pushing deeper into emerging and developing markets as businesses and consumers increasingly use stablecoins for payments, remittances and other financial services. For PSPs and acquirers, the point is obvious: digital-dollar rails are moving from crypto-native use cases into the ordinary cross-border money flow that banks and payment companies already compete for.

1. CEO Jeremy Allaire told Reuters that Circle plans to expand into about 50 emerging and developing markets, with demand rising across Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He described the market as moving from the “early adopter phase” of blockchain technology into the “mainstream scaling phase.”
2. USDC has about $72.6 billion in circulation, according to CoinDesk data, and roughly a quarter of the stablecoin market. Tether’s USDT still leads with nearly 60%, so Circle is expanding into a market where the incumbent already has a much larger distribution footprint.
3. Circle’s $400 million acquisition of Singapore-based payments firm Tazapay is part of the playbook. The deal gives Circle access to local banking and payment networks across more than 100 markets, which is the practical ingredient you need if you want stablecoin flow to move beyond the crypto bubble and into actual merchant and payout infrastructure.
4. The company also launched Arc, its own blockchain for payments and financial transactions, and secured U.S. federal trust bank approval in July. Allaire said clearer rules, including the U.S. GENIUS Act governing stablecoins, are encouraging wider adoption.
5. Allaire also said banks are developing their own digital currencies and pointed to growing use of USDC by artificial intelligence agents — software programs that can independently make small payments for information and online services. In other words, the use case is broadening from trader settlement to machine-to-machine spending, which is not where the stablecoin story started.