Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-05-16
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-121234
Chunk: 192

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-16
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 192
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 are the best positioned firm to drive, capture, and monetize it.

Industry background

Limitations of traditional financial services

The financial services industry represents one of the largest and most systemically important sectors of the global economy.

Since the advent of what is now known as traditional financial services over the past 150 years, innovators have constantly endeavored to improve upon the means by which
we use and move money, enter into financial

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contracts, and form and use capital for economic expansion. These improvements have been largely beneficial and have contributed to global economic progress. Examples include the emergence of credit cards, digital payments, electronic markets and exchanges, digital consumer finance platforms, and many other advances that have expanded the global reach of financial services with the utilization of mobile devices and software. However, many challenges persist as a result of the legacy infrastructure on which these platforms are built, existing regulatory and market structures disincentivizing fundamental innovation, and a lack of the global connectivity and interoperability required for truly internet-scale financial services. We believe that an internet-based, blockchain-enabled financial system will address and resolve the most pertinent structural issues within financial services today:

| • |     | High costs: More than $120 trillion in global business-to-business payments are processed annually, according                                                                                                                                        
 to Visa. Much of these payments are made using legacy infrastructure, such as checks and bank wires. Businesses seeking to accept payments from customers are often charged several percentage points of the transaction’s value, which functionally 
 represents a global economic tax amounting to trillions in value annually, much of which could be returned to productive use with the adoption of more efficient, internet-native payments infrastructure. Entire industries have been established   
 predicated upon intermediary fees, with global payments industry revenue standing at $2.4 trillion in 2023, according to McKinsey’s 2024 Global Payments Report.                                                                                     |

| • |     | Significant inefficiencies: Existing global systems of payment and value exchange are riddled with the same                                                                                                                                            
 inefficiencies as pre-internet communications—money often takes days or longer to move, particularly cross-border. Besides adding significant fees from foreign exchange and other transaction-related                                                 
 expenses, these slow processes can create loss potential and result in significant capital being locked up for days awaiting settlement (e.g., margin posted to securities clearinghouses that settle T+1). Commercial transactions are plagued by     
 delayed financial settlement and high costs, reflecting a lucrative source of revenue for payment processors but consequently representing a real cost to the global economy