Circle has reported 30% growth in USDC assets under custody on Kraken since their September 2025 partnership, alongside nearly 1 billion EURC traded on the exchange since listing.
Summary
- USDC assets under custody on Kraken grew 30% since the September 2025 partnership, Circle said.
- Nearly 1 billion EURC has traded on Kraken since the euro stablecoin’s listing.
- Circle reported 350 million USDC deposited into Kraken’s DeFi Earn vaults after launch.
Circle, in an Oct. 28 post presenting its Kraken case study, said the collaboration covered funding, trading, wallet infrastructure and onchain access, with 350 million USDC deposited into Kraken’s DeFi Earn vaults after launch.
Kraken’s USDC partnership covers trading and funding
According to the issuer’s post, Kraken used USDC and EURC to reduce fragmentation across its platform and give customers more direct access to dollar- and euro-denominated stablecoin services. Circle described the work as bringing stablecoins into products customers already use.
The companies announced their agreement on Sept. 17, 2025. As crypto.news previously reported, Kraken agreed to expand stablecoin access through deeper USDC support and the introduction of EURC, with reduced conversion fees and more opportunities to use USDC across its applications.
At the time, Kraken said it had offered stablecoins since 2017 and had seen demand develop across trading and payments. The original announcement described access to Circle’s infrastructure as part of the arrangement, alongside liquidity improvements for exchange customers.
Mark Greenberg, then identified in the announcement as global head of Kraken’s consumer business, described stablecoins as “Permissionless, programmable, and global by default.” He said the partnership would embed Circle’s tokens in products already used by Kraken clients.
DeFi Earn routes USDC into lending vaults
Kraken launched DeFi Earn on Jan. 26, 2026, allowing customers to allocate cash and supported stablecoins to onchain lending through its existing interface. In its launch announcement, the exchange explained that funds could be converted into USDC before being placed in Veda vaults that supply lending protocols.
At launch, Kraken named Sentora as the risk manager responsible for allocations, risk management, and liquidity monitoring. Customers could choose among Balanced Yield, Boosted Yield and Advanced Strategies USDC vaults, with each option offering a different strategy within the product.
Aave Labs separately described the deployment in its own Jan. 26 announcement. According to the protocol developer, USDC deposits went into a vault on Kraken’s Ink network, which supplied liquidity to lending markets such as Aave. Borrower payments contributed to the vault’s share value and users’ rewards.
Across Kraken’s consumer and professional products, mobile interfaces and Krak wallet, Aave Labs said customers could view balances and track rewards without handling seed phrases or manually signing the underlying transactions.
For US customers, Kraken’s launch announcement specified availability in 48 states, excluding New York and Maine, alongside Canada and the European Economic Area. Its support FAQ, updated Oct. 15, says access depends on location and identifies the UK, Australia and UAE among unavailable jurisdictions.
In the updated FAQ, Kraken says supported deposits can include cash, USDC, USDT, USDG and Bitcoin, with assets converted into the selected vault’s base asset before allocation. Standard conversion fees apply when the deposited asset differs from that base asset, and customers can review the fee before confirming.
Kraken says rewards accrue continuously and are added to the vault balance, with USDC vault rewards paid in USDC. Returns vary with lending-market conditions and fees are taken from earnings before the balance is displayed. The FAQ warns that smart-contract failures, bad debt and market volatility can cause losses, while limited liquidity can delay withdrawals.
EURC trading follows expansion across exchanges
The nearly 1 billion EURC trading figure follows an earlier supply milestone for Circle’s euro token. On Aug. 18, coverage of its €400 million circulation milestone cited the issuer’s figures showing €402.4 million outstanding as of Aug. 13.
In its underlying August update, Circle said EURC’s supply had more than doubled over the preceding year. The company traced its distribution from an Ethereum launch in June 2022 to native issuance on Avalanche, Stellar, Solana and Base, with approximately €80 million circulating at the end of 2024.
Circle named Bitpanda, Bitstamp, Bybit, Coinbase and Kraken among exchanges listing EURC. Its update described support for EURC/EUR and EURC/USD markets, together with integration into institutional custody and settlement services provided by Cobo, Copper and Fireblocks.
European margin trading uses USDC and EURC
Kraken’s support notice dated Jan. 20 describes another application for the two tokens among EEA clients. The exchange said margin extensions for dollar-quoted cash pairs would use USDC, while euro-quoted pairs would use EURC.
For a BTC/EUR order, the notice explains, Kraken automatically converts EURC into euros at a one-to-one rate without a conversion fee. Customers continue trading on the cash order book, and proceeds are converted as needed to close the stablecoin margin extension.
In an Oct. 1 policy submission, Circle sought changes to MiCA covering cross-border issuance, reserve assets and recognition of foreign-regulated stablecoins. The issuer supported replacing fixed bank-deposit thresholds with requirements based on reserve liquidity.
According to the submission’s reported proposals, Circle wants a European Commission assessment of foreign regulatory frameworks combined with a European Banking Authority decision recognizing individual issuers. The company cited the US GENIUS Act’s foreign-issuer framework as a model for that recognition route.
