Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-084832
Chunk: 178

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 178
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, both in terms of bank accounts as well as access to credit. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) can also be inhibited in access to                                                  
 credit. The IMF has estimated that, in 2022, approximately 75% of countries reporting SME loan data saw a decline in SME loans relative to the size of their economies, as COVID support measures unwound.                                             |

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The new internet financial system The internet introduced the idea of open and permissionless networks, initially enabling anyone to communicate with anyone else over simple electronic protocols that connected computers to one another in a peer-to-peerfashion. Early adopters used the internet for sharing email, posting on community forums, and sharing basic documents. Driven by the openness of this emerging global network, eventually millions of developers and companies built new applications and developed products leveraging the power and underlying infrastructure of these open networks. As the underlying network infrastructure improved through broadband, mobile technology, and advances in computing power, exponential network effects took hold, and the internet transformed virtually every incumbent industry, radically reshaping the unit economics of software, media, communications, and commerce. Similarly, we believe that the advent of blockchain networks and the internet financial system has the opportunity to transform the financial industry and digital commerce by reshaping the customer experience, the unit economics, and the ultimate reach of the financial system. Over the next decade, we believe that this fundamental change will be felt in a similar manner to the changes that have occurred in other industries as they adapted to earlier generations of internet technologies. The internet financial system, and the blockchain networks that provide its foundation, offers enormous potential advantages over the traditional financial system, including:

| • |     | Open, global, and interoperable public network infrastructure that enables transactions between counterparties to settle 
 nearly instantly and at a cost as low as a fraction of a cent per transaction.                                           |

| • |     | By using blockchains, transactions and financial contracts can provide greater transparency into financial flows, while 
 also leveraging cryptography to enhance privacy and security.                                                           |

| • |     | Using smart contracts, blockchain networks enable companies and developers to build new applications that intermediate                                                                                         
 money, payments, and commerce in powerful new ways, unlocking innovation in the same way that App Stores and mobile phones unlocked innovation through new categories of apps that were never before possible. |

Blockchain networks The advent of blockchain networks reshapes how the global financial system can operate, creating significant opportunities for new innovations to flourish. The financial industry supports more than $250 trillion in annual