Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-08-12
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-178989
Chunk: 205

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-08-12
Form: S-1
Chunk 205
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, Unichain, Worldchain, XRPL, and ZKsync, with more expected in the future. |

| • |     | Blockchain protocols. Most blockchain networks support developing and deploying smart contracts that can act as onchain protocols. These protocols can offer a wide array of building blocks for financial and commercial applications, such as exchange, lending, invoice payments, micro-payments, treasury management, and more. Leading protocols that support USDC and the Circle stablecoin network include projects such as the Uniswap Protocol, Aave, OpenSea, and Safe. |

| • |     | Banks and neo-banks. Banks and neo-banks play an increasingly important role in the Circle stablecoin ecosystem, providing settlement and reserve infrastructure for Circle stablecoins. They are also important end-users of our stablecoin infrastructure. We are seeing growth in startup banks and neo-banks in many emerging markets focused on providing digital payment and settlement services using USDC and the Circle stablecoin network. |

| • |     | Payments companies. Increasingly, leading payments companies are integrating the Circle stablecoin network into their offerings as a means of settlement (directly or indirectly) for their customers. As the global digital assets ecosystem grows, these companies are building products that are “future proof” and enabled for increasing integration with the financial system. This includes payment processors, credit card networks, and money remittance services. We are working with leading payments companies like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Worldpay, and MoneyGram to facilitate stablecoin settlement on the Circle stablecoin network. |

| • |     | Market makers and liquidity providers. Stablecoins such as USDC are made widely available through hundreds of retail and institutional platforms around the world. As a wholesale market infrastructure, we do not directly provide stablecoin liquidity to all of these venues and distribution channels; instead, we depend upon a global network of market makers and over-the-counter liquidity providers to supply USDC. These institutional trading firms play an important role in ensuring that USDC is widely accessible, including in dozens of international markets where they facilitate trading using local currencies and banking infrastructure. Leading global market makers and liquidity providers include Cumberland, Galaxy Digital, |

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| Wintermute Trading, and B2C2. For example, in December 2024, we entered into an agreement with Cumberland to expand liquidity and settlement capabilities in USYC and USDC over the course of a three-year term. |

**We are continually exploring opportunities to expand our product offerings to complement and increase the usage and utility