Circle is moving into the global foreign-exchange market with a new platform built to bring stablecoins into one of finance’s largest and most entrenched systems.
The company introduced Circle StableFX, an institutional trading engine designed for onchain currency pairs and powered by Arc1, its upcoming layer-1 blockchain. It also unveiled a partner program that supports regulated regional stablecoins.
The FX market reached US$9.6 trillion in daily turnover in April, according to Bank for International Settlements data, making it larger than all global stock markets combined. Circle aims to offer institutions round-the-clock stablecoin settlement with fewer intermediaries, lower counterparty risk and faster access to liquidity. The platform requires strict business and anti-money-laundering verification, reinforcing its compliance-focused design.
StableFX is now active on the Arc testnet, allowing institutions and developers to evaluate the system ahead of a planned 2026 mainnet debut.
Circle’s expansion into FX aligns with broader efforts by major crypto firms to claim revenue from traditional markets. The company’s revenue rose to $740 million in the third quarter, and its Arc testnet has attracted participation from global financial players including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Visa.