Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-126208
Chunk: 205

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 205
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 and operational risks—code that handles the storage and transfer of digital value is a frequent target for hackers and other illicit actors. Additionally, writing smart contracts that can work across different blockchain networks introduces yet more complexity. Finally, safely deploying and managing smart contracts on blockchain networks introduces production and operation hurdles that are largely unfamiliar to existing IT and information security professionals. To address these issues, we introduced Circle Contracts, which empowers developers to integrate and build with smart contracts without needing to learn a new coding language, and by reusing existing smart contract templates for the most common tasks and application types. Circle Contracts also streamlines the deployment, monitoring, and administration of smart contracts across multiple different blockchain networks. When combined with Circle Wallets, Circle Contracts unlocks the creativity of developers to safely build highly sophisticated applications, while also giving them access to libraries of out-of-the-boxsmart contract templates that are common to payment applications using USDC, as well as other popular features such as issuing and managing NFTs. Combined, these offerings also enable financial services firms to more easily build “tokenization” applications for existing financial assets, and integrate those into their existing online products.

| • |     | Circle Paymaster.  A frequent challenge that developers and end-users face when interacting with onchain apps                                                                                                                                       
 is paying for gas fees—transaction costs essential for blockchain networks. Traditionally, users must acquire and hold blockchain-specific native tokens, such as ETH or SOL, to pay these fees, creating friction and complexity. Users often find 
 themselves handling multiple assets, which can lead to operational hurdles and diminished user experiences.                                                                                                                                         |

To address these challenges, we introduced Paymaster, an onchain smart contract that allows developers and end-users to pay these fees in USDC instead of the blockchain’s native tokens. Paymaster can be integrated by developers without requiring special permissions, making the technology broadly accessible and significantly enhancing interoperability within the blockchain ecosystem. By facilitating effortless use of USDC for gas payments across various blockchains, Paymaster advances Circle’s broader mission to foster global economic prosperity through frictionless value exchange. Paymaster simplifies the user experience by eliminating the need for users to maintain balances of multiple volatile native tokens. We pre-fund Paymaster smart contracts with the blockchain’s native tokens, automatically covering gas fees when end-users execute blockchain transactions through developer 143

applications. Concurrently, the Paymaster smart contract receives reimbursement in USDC from developers or end-users. To maintain liquidity, Paymaster periodically and automatically rebalances its token reserves, converting