Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-126208
Chunk: 191

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 191
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 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 that could otherwise be put to more productive use. Inefficiencies in the 
 incumbent financial system also encourage counterparties to use high-friction financial instruments, such as bank guarantees or letters of credit, which perpetuate the inefficiencies inherent in the system.                                         |

| • |     | Walled gardens:  Today’s systems of electronic money are constructed around national and corporate                                                                                                                                                        
 boundaries, often regulated and operated by national monopolies, similar to the world of media and communications in the pre-internet era. Payments are bound by “walled gardens,” harkening                                                              
 back to the days when one could send an email to a recipient only if both sides used the same online mail service (such as AOL and CompuServe). In the incumbent financial system, electronic money can only travel within tightly controlled ecosystems, 
 often trapped in various privately mediated networks, exacerbating concerns relating to financial exclusion and connectivity around the world.                                                                                                            |

| • |     | Barriers to access:  The existing financial system, as a result of limited reach and high costs that preclude                                                                                                                                          
 servicing certain market participants, excludes large portions of the global population. The World Bank estimates that as of 2022, approximately 1.4 billion people, or 24% of adults globally, lack an account at a financial institution or mobile   
 money provider (29% of adults in developing economies). While progress has been made on