Circle has acquired Hashnote, the issuer of USYC — a tokenised money market fund with $1.52 billion deployed as of mid-January 2025 — in a move designed to integrate tokenised collateral directly into the USDC ecosystem and build institutional-grade infrastructure for on-chain capital markets.
The acquisition connects two complementary products: USYC provides yield-bearing tokenised collateral backed by short-dated US Treasuries, while USDC provides the cash settlement layer. Circle's stated intention is to allow tokenised money market fund collateral to move seamlessly across exchanges, custodians, and prime brokers — addressing one of the persistent friction points in institutional on-chain markets, where moving between yield-bearing collateral and cash typically requires manual intervention and introduces settlement delays.
Circle also announced plans to deploy native USDC on the Canton Network, supporting 24/7 convertibility between on-chain collateral and cash in institutional markets. Strategic trading firm DRW and its crypto arm Cumberland are named partners in the arrangement, providing institutional market-making and liquidity context.
The $1.52 billion USYC deployment figure is one of the largest disclosed tokenised asset balances in the institutional market at this point, and gives the acquisition immediate scale credibility. Combined with the Canton Network integration — which connects DBS, Goldman Sachs, and other major financial institutions through a permissioned interoperability layer — the deal positions Circle as infrastructure rather than simply a stablecoin issuer.