Safe, the leading multisig based smart account platform securing $60 billion in digital assets, and Circle Internet Group, a global financial technology company and stablecoin market leader, announced a strategic partnership to establish Safe as a premier institutional storage solution for USDC in self-custody and DeFi. Together, they are building trusted rails for the next generation of onchain capital markets and formalizing Safe’s role as a leading institutional standard for secure USDC treasury management.
$2.5 billion USDC is currently held in Safe smart accounts. This significant usage demonstrates the market’s trust in Safe’s battle-tested security and validates the natural alignment between Circle’s regulated2 stablecoin and Safe’s enterprise-grade infrastructure.
“As institutions increasingly move onchain, they need trusted, scalable infrastructure to manage capital with confidence. Safe has already proven itself as an important platform for USDC adoption at scale, and this partnership underscores the growing demand for regulated, secure digital dollars in institutional treasury management and DeFi. By combining USDC, which has helped deliver over $40T in onchain transactions3, with Safe’s smart account technology, we’re equipping organizations with the tools they need to operate seamlessly in the next generation of capital markets.” said Kash Razzaghi, Chief Commercial Officer, Circle.
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The partnership will focus on delivering an enhanced experience for institutional USDC holders from initial onboarding to advanced treasury management, by positioning USDC at the core of the Safe ecosystem. Safe’s programmable multi-signature technology, which already powers nearly 4% of all Ethereum transactions, provides the institutional-grade security required for large-scale treasury operations while maintaining direct access to DeFi’s deepest liquidity pools, where USDC is a dominant asset. Together, Circle and Safe will deepen product integrations and streamline workflows to empower established and emerging institutions including DAOs, crypto-native funds, and Fortune 500 companies exploring crypto, with the self-custodial infrastructure they need to operate efficiently and confidently onchain.
“Institutional money is flowing into self-custody infrastructure and DeFi, and institutions need secure, scalable tools to keep up,” said Lukas Schor, Co-founder of Safe and President of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation. “Together with Circle, we’re positioning USDC as a core pillar of the Safe ecosystem, so that Safe becomes a home for institutional stablecoin DeFi.”
With this partnership, Circle and Safe are reinforcing the need for secure, programmable, and institution-ready self-custody. This announcement follows a period of record-breaking growth for Safe as Safe hit transaction volumes of $1 Trillion. In Q1 2025 alone, total volume processed (TVP) across Safe smart accounts reached an all-time high of $189.6 billion—up 65% quarter-over-quarter—driven by increased activity on Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum. Safe smart accounts also hit a new milestone of 116.7 million transactions during the quarter, with over $26.2 billion in DEX volume, marking a 442% surge.
These metrics reinforce Safe’s growing role as the core infrastructure for onchain capital coordination. To meet rising institutional demand, Safe recently launched Safe Labs, a dedicated initiative focused on building enterprise-grade self-custody infrastructure, further solidifying Safe’s leadership at the intersection of security, composability, and institutional adoption.
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