USDC vs. USDT: $70.2T volume drives shift as Circle expands into Africa

ambcryptoPubblicato 2026-03-25Pubblicato ultima volta 2026-03-25

Introduzione

Circle partners with Sasai Fintech (Cassava Technologies) to expand USDC into Africa, aiming to revolutionize cross-border payments by making them faster, cheaper, and more reliable. This integration into Sasai's mobile platform addresses high fees (often over 7%) and slow traditional systems. The move occurs as stablecoins process $70.2T in annual volume, with USDC gaining market share against USDT, signaling a shift toward reliable, transparent systems. However, Circle faces regulatory challenges in the U.S., including concerns from the upcoming CLARITY Act, which contributed to a recent 20% stock drop. The expansion highlights a strategic focus on high-growth markets like Africa despite domestic uncertainties.

While many are currently concerned about Circle’s stock performance on the NYSE, the company’s partnership with Sasai Fintech, a business of Cassava Technologies, tells an interesting story.

This move isn’t just about expanding into Africa; it’s aimed at tackling a long‐standing challenge: cross‐border payments that remain slow, costly, and inefficient. The plan is to bring USDC into Sasai’s mobile platform, which already supports payments and remittances across multiple African countries.

USDC x Sasai’s partnership: A green flag

Currently, fees can go above 7%, so using a stablecoin like USDC can make transactions faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

By adding USDC into a mobile platform that already supports fast-moving trade, it removes the delays and high costs of traditional systems, where transactions can take days.

Additionally, the partnership is also meant to offer a stable and transparent way to make cross-border payments. This would, in turn, help businesses avoid local currency swings while staying connected to the global market.

Executives weighing in

Remarking on the same, Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and Executive Chairman at Cassava Technologies, said,

Africa’s digital economy is entering a new era, propelled by entrepreneurship, a mobile-first generation, and the acceleration of intra-regional trade.

Adding more to the sentiment, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO at Circle, noted,

Working with Cassava, we can extend the benefits of USDC and onchain infrastructure into high-growth payment corridors to deliver always-on global connectivity.

Stablecoin’s market dynamics: USDC vs. USDT

The partnership comes at an important time for stablecoins, which have handled a huge $70.2 trillion in transactions over the past year. While USDT was leading for most of 2025, things started to change in early 2026.

Even though total activity slowed a bit in March after a strong February, USDC has started catching up and even briefly matched USDT’s share.

This rise in USDC signals a shift away from pure speculation toward more reliable systems, something Circle is now bringing to markets like Africa.

Regulatory clarity and more

While Circle expands into Africa, its position in the United States has become shaky due to new regulations.

In 2025, the GENIUS Act gave a positive direction for stablecoins by supporting dollar-backed digital assets. But now, the upcoming CLARITY Act is creating fresh concerns.

This has made investors nervous, as it could directly impact how companies like Circle generate revenue. As a result, Circle’s stock (CRCL) recently saw a sharp drop of nearly 20% on the 24th of March, closing at $101.17.

All this together shows that Circle is at a turning point, dealing with regulatory challenges in the U.S. while building a strong, usage-driven future in markets like Africa.

Final Summary

Integrating USDC into Sasai’s mobile network could cut remittance costs and speed up settlements.
The rising competition between USDC and USDT reflects demand for transparency and regulatory alignment.

Domande pertinenti

QWhat is the primary goal of Circle's partnership with Sasai Fintech in Africa?

AThe primary goal is to tackle the challenges of slow, costly, and inefficient cross-border payments by integrating USDC into Sasai's mobile platform to make transactions faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

QAccording to the article, what significant shift in the stablecoin market does the rise of USDC signal?

AThe rise of USDC signals a shift away from pure speculation toward more reliable and transparent systems for cross-border payments and remittances.

QWhat recent U.S. regulatory development has created concerns for Circle and its investors?

AThe upcoming CLARITY Act has created fresh concerns and investor nervousness, as it could directly impact how companies like Circle generate revenue, contributing to a sharp drop in its stock price.

QHow much transaction volume have stablecoins handled over the past year, as mentioned in the article?

AStablecoins have handled a huge $70.2 trillion in transactions over the past year.

QWhich two key benefits does the article suggest the USDC integration will bring to African markets?

AThe integration is expected to cut remittance costs and speed up settlement times for cross-border payments.

Letture associate

With 300 Million Financing to Accumulate ETH, the Hidden Concerns Behind BitMine's High-Yield Preferred Shares

BitMine, led by Thomas Lee, plans to raise up to $300 million through an initial public offering of 3 million shares of perpetual Series A preferred stock on the NYSE (ticker: BMNP). The stock offers a fixed 9.5% annual dividend. The funds are intended to further the company's accumulation of Ethereum, expand its staking node operations, and for general corporate purposes. This move comes as BitMine faces significant challenges. Its massive Ethereum holdings, over 5.3 million ETH (roughly 4.5% of circulating supply), are currently at an unrealized loss exceeding $8.5 billion due to the crypto market downturn. The company's core business model relies on staking these ETH holdings to generate yield, which it presents as the primary means to cover the new, substantial annual dividend obligation of approximately $28.5 million if the offering is fully subscribed. While the model is similar to MicroStrategy's bitcoin-focused strategy of using capital markets to fund crypto acquisitions, BitMine's product differs with its fixed, non-adjustable dividend rate. The company acknowledges risks, stating dividend payments could also come from cash reserves, asset sales, or future financing, and warns that staking yields may underperform or be illiquid during market stress. The 9.5% fixed rate reflects the higher risk premium demanded from investors for a company heavily exposed to Ethereum's volatility.

Foresight News2 min fa

With 300 Million Financing to Accumulate ETH, the Hidden Concerns Behind BitMine's High-Yield Preferred Shares

Foresight News2 min fa

A Year of Observing Agent Payments: The Cold Reality Behind the Hot Narrative

A Year in Agent Payments: The Cold Reality Behind a Hot Narrative This article examines the current state of "Agent payments," a year after it became a major trend at the intersection of AI, payments, and crypto. Despite significant investments from major players like Stripe, Visa, and Google, the author—having built products and spoken with merchants and developers—finds genuine, large-scale demand still lacking. Key findings across several hyped scenarios reveal structural challenges: * **Agent-to-Merchant Commerce:** For most product categories (e.g., clothing, electronics), AI shopping via chat is inferior to traditional visual e-commerce. Merchant interest is largely defensive, focused on future-proofing rather than current consumer demand. True potential exists only in specific, high-frequency/low-decision scenarios (like food orders) or for simplifying broken checkout experiences, but these require massive consumer distribution, favoring incumbents. * **Agent-to-API/Machine Commerce:** While stablecoin micropayments are touted for API calls, developers already solve small-value payments via prepaid credits and subscriptions. Large SaaS providers prefer enterprise contracts over fragmented micro-pricing. The market exists for long-tail services outside the top providers but is inherently smaller than the hype suggests. * **Agent-to-Agent Payments:** This remains a theoretical long-term vision with negligible real transaction volume. The core challenges—discovery, trust, negotiation, dispute resolution—are unsolved. While the potential for a new, high-speed settlement layer is real, it is not the current market. * **Agent Finance:** This is the sole area with existing, paying customers (fund managers, DeFi users). AI enhances real-time monitoring and autonomous rebalancing, offering real capability gains. However, competition favors established, regulated institutions with existing licenses and client relationships. The author concludes that the core deficiency in the Agent economy is not merely a payment layer, but a more complex **coordination** capability—figuring out how Agents and humans work together, verify task completion, and settle outcomes. Payment is just one component of settlement, which is itself part of coordination. For large companies, investing now is a defensive, long-term bet with minimal cost. For startups, however, the imperative is to find markets that exist today, not wait for a future wave that remains on the horizon.

marsbit4 min fa

A Year of Observing Agent Payments: The Cold Reality Behind the Hot Narrative

marsbit4 min fa

China's First Embodied Data Compliance Outbound: How Does Paxini Become a Game-Changer for Industry Development?

"Embodied Intelligence Data Compliance Goes Global: A Breakthrough Moment. At the 2026 World Intelligent Industry Expo, Paxini, the sole Chinese company authorized for cross-border embodied data transfer, launched a pioneering project in Tianjin. This marks the first officially approved case of its kind in China, resolving a major industry bottleneck for compliant international data flow. As the ultimate direction of AI evolution, embodied intelligence relies on vast, multi-modal physical world interaction data. Despite booming global demand, stringent compliance had previously trapped the domestic industry. Paxini's breakthrough establishes a formal compliance framework, setting a benchmark for standardized development. The core of Paxini's success lies in its industry-leading data infrastructure and compliant security architecture, aligning with national data strategy. It operates a large-scale 'data collection factory' for high-quality, multi-modal data and has established a full-chain compliant pathway from 'collection-processing-certification-outbound transfer'. This dual advantage in data scale/quality and compliance secures its leadership. Beyond immediate commercial impact, the project signifies long-term strategic value: international market validation from top-tier financial institutions and the compounding benefits of ecosystem building. High-quality physical world data possesses enduring value. By solving fundamental infrastructure and compliance challenges, Paxini not only contributes a 'Chinese model' to the global embodied intelligence industry but also solidifies a key competitive moat for the long haul. This enables safe, efficient global flow of China's quality embodied data, amplifying its influence in the intelligent manufacturing landscape."

marsbit6 min fa

China's First Embodied Data Compliance Outbound: How Does Paxini Become a Game-Changer for Industry Development?

marsbit6 min fa

Full Decoding of SpaceX's Roadshow: Humanity's Largest IPO in History, Aiming to Send GPUs into Space

SpaceX launches IPO roadshow for potentially largest offering ever, targeting $1.75T valuation. Key points: The company presents a three-pillar strategy: Space (low-cost launches via reusable rockets), Starlink (profitable satellite internet, ~103M users in Q1 2026), and AI (recently merged xAI, currently a major cash burn). The most ambitious vision is orbital AI data centers, leveraging Starship to deploy compute satellites for unlimited solar power and heat dissipation, aiming to overcome ground-based power grid limitations. While Starlink provides a solid financial anchor, the valuation premium hinges on long-term bets like space-based computing and lunar/Mars economies. Analysts note significant risks, including xAI's massive losses, Musk's control via dual-class shares, and potential sell-pressure post-lockup expiration in late 2026.

marsbit13 min fa

Full Decoding of SpaceX's Roadshow: Humanity's Largest IPO in History, Aiming to Send GPUs into Space

marsbit13 min fa

Macroeconomic Origins of the African Payments Market Structure

Africa’s payment landscape exhibits the world’s highest mobile money penetration and fastest cryptocurrency adoption. This is not a market anomaly but a macroeconomic inevitability driven by deep structural factors: a vast, young population, heavy reliance on commodity exports and remittances generating massive cross‑border payment needs, and a chronically underdeveloped formal banking system plagued by de‑risking, high inflation, and currency instability. This vacuum has allowed mobile money (e.g., M‑Pesa) to become the primary payment channel domestically, while cryptocurrencies—particularly stablecoins—serve as a store of value against local‑currency depreciation and a lower‑cost cross‑border medium. The key divide is the Sahara: North Africa integrates with the MENA oil‑centric financial system, while Sub‑Saharan Africa, facing acute dollar shortages and fragmented currencies, is the epicenter of this fintech surge. Structural reliance on dollars, driven by trade deficits and weak local currency credibility, creates persistent dollar scarcity, which crypto and mobile payments effectively address. Efforts like the Pan‑African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) aim at de‑dollarization, but these alternatives will remain essential as long as underlying economic constraints—commodity dependence, limited industrialization, and financial exclusion—persist.

marsbit18 min fa

Macroeconomic Origins of the African Payments Market Structure

marsbit18 min fa

Trading

Spot

Futures