Circle And Polymarket Partner To Enhance On-Chain Financial Market Infrastructure

In Brief

Circle has partnered with Polymarket to transition its prediction market settlement from bridged USDC to native USDC, enhancing reliability, capital efficiency, and alignment with institutional standards.

Internet financial services firm Circle said it has entered into a partnership with prediction market platform Polymarket to support the development of a more reliable, dollar-denominated settlement framework for users of the platform.

Polymarket, which describes itself as the world’s largest prediction market, allows participants to trade on the outcomes of future events, with prices reflecting collective expectations as information emerges in real time and market activity responds to breaking news.

At present, trading on Polymarket is backed by bridged USDC, known as USDC.e, on the Polygon network. Under the new agreement, the platform plans to migrate its settlement and collateral system to native USDC over the coming months

Native USDC is issued by Circle’s regulated entities and can be redeemed on a one-to-one basis for US dollars, a structure intended to improve capital efficiency, operational scalability and alignment with institutional market standards as Polymarket expands

The company said the partnership places Circle among a broader group of established financial and market-infrastructure organizations that Polymarket works with as it seeks to build a transparent, institution-grade prediction market.

Polymarket noted that long-standing market operators and infrastructure providers, including firms such as Intercontinental Exchange and Circle, have played a central role in shaping modern standards for regulated and high-integrity markets, and said its strategy follows a similarly long-term approach focused on regulated, on-chain financial infrastructure.

The collaboration also highlights a wider trend across the digital asset sector toward embedding payment stablecoins into trusted on-chain financial systems, with the aim of bringing conventional standards for transparency and settlement efficiency into internet-native markets.

Stablecoins Enhance Reliability And Institutional Readiness Of Prediction Market Settlements

Circle is an internet-based financial services company that develops digital asset infrastructure, payment technologies and programmable blockchain systems designed to support global financial activity and cross-border transactions

Prediction market platforms rely on the accurate settlement of contracts once real-world events are resolved, and the use of stablecoins such as USDC has replaced more volatile cryptocurrencies for this purpose. Because stablecoins are designed to maintain a fixed value against national currencies, they limit exposure to price fluctuations and allow market outcomes to be expressed directly in fiat-equivalent terms, improving the consistency and reliability of settlement

Market operators note that financial institutions, including professional trading firms and regulated intermediaries, generally favor instruments that are supported by transparent reserves and exhibit low price volatility, factors that make stablecoin-based settlement frameworks easier to integrate into existing risk and compliance structures