Circle moves record $4.4B USDC to Coinbase on Hyperliquid

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, executed the largest single on-chain transfer in the token's history on June 12, moving approximately 4.4 billion USDC to Coinbase via the HyperEVM network. The transaction, detected by blockchain analytics platform Arkham, is directly tied to the implementation of Hyperliquid's newly approved AQAv2 protocol.

The transfer followed a formal vote by Hyperliquid's network validators, with 19 out of 26 approving the AQAv2 stablecoin alignment model earlier that day. Under this framework, Coinbase serves as the treasury deployer for USDC within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, while Circle remains responsible for minting and issuance. The movement of funds is seen as an operational step to facilitate liquidity management and rebalancing under the new system, rather than signaling new market activity.

AQAv2 designates USDC as the default "aligned quote asset" for trading pairs and perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid. In return, stablecoin deployers will share approximately 90% of the cost-adjusted reserve yield revenue generated from their supply on the network with the protocol. This revenue is then used to buy back HYPE tokens from the...