Circle Acquires Hashnote, Bringing the World's Largest Tokenized Money Market Fund Under Its Control

The purchase price remains undisclosed, but the acquired fund, known as USYC (Hashnote Short Duration Yield Coin), holds assets worth over $1.25 billion.

Stablecoin issuer Circle has acquired Hashnote, bringing the world’s largest tokenized money market fund under its control. The purchase price remains undisclosed, but the acquired fund, known as USYC (Hashnote Short Duration Yield Coin), holds assets of over $1.25 billion.

The USYC fund primarily invests in U.S. Treasury debt and reverse repurchase agreements. This acquisition marks Circle’s latest move to expand its presence in the digital asset market, where it competes with rival stablecoin issuer Tether.

To support the integration of USYC, Circle has formed a partnership with Cumberland, a major institutional crypto trading firm and a subsidiary of DRW. Cumberland will play a key role in bridging USYC with Circle’s USDC stablecoin, aiming to improve liquidity and settlement capabilities across both crypto and traditional markets.

Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s CEO, shared his thoughts about the deal on social media platform X. He highlighted the potential to “bring yield-bearing collateral to crypto market structures” that operate continuously. Allaire emphasized that instant movement between cash and collateral represents a major goal in capital markets.

The acquisition comes at a time when tokenized money market funds (TMMFs) are gaining attention. These blockchain-based versions of traditional financial assets offer investors faster ways to access yield-generating instruments.

Circle has also revealed plans to deploy native USDC on Canton, a blockchain platform designed for secure financial applications. Canton currently handles over $3.6 trillion in tokenized real-world assets and processes more than $1.5 trillion in monthly repo transactions.

The broader real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector shows strong growth. Current data from DeFiLlama indicates the total value locked in these assets has increased by 36.9% over the past year, reaching $7.89 billion.