Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-05-16
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-121234
Chunk: 240

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-16
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 240
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 of a bankruptcy or insolvency. Due to the novelty of stablecoins, however, courts have not yet considered the treatment of underlying reserve assets in the context of a
bankruptcy or insolvency of a stablecoin issuer and have only issued a limited number of rulings related to digital assets in the context of a bankruptcy or insolvency. Should a court conclude—consistent with our position—that the
underlying reserve assets are the property of stablecoin holders, and not the bankruptcy estate, stablecoin holders may still experience delays in recovering the underlying assets due to, among other things, bankruptcy administration, ongoing
litigation, or application of the automatic stay. At the same time, it is possible that a U.S. court, in the case of USDC, or a French court, in the case of EURC, could instead determine that the reserve assets backing USDC and EURC, respectively,
are property of our bankruptcy estate. If this were to happen, other creditors of Circle may be able to obtain recoveries from the underlying reserve assets and holders of Circle stablecoins could be treated as general unsecured creditors of Circle,
which could result in Circle stablecoin holders receiving only partial recoveries rather than the full purported value of their stablecoin holdings.

We will
continue to monitor legal, regulatory, and other developments in order to take reasonable and appropriate steps to continue the safeguarding of Circle stablecoin reserves.

166

Intellectual property

The
protection of our technology and intellectual property is an important aspect of our business. We rely upon a combination of trademark, patent, trade secret, and copyright laws in the United States and similar laws in other countries, as well as
confidentiality procedures, contractual commitments, and other legal rights to establish, maintain, and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. We have an active program of establishing, maintaining, and protecting our intellectual
property and proprietary rights, including our proprietary technology, through the filing of patents, registration of trademarks, and use of contractual measures and other intellectual property rights. We generally enter into agreements with our
employees, consultants, contractors, and other third parties that include confidentiality and nondisclosure provisions in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our confidential information, trade secrets, know-how, and proprietary technology. Those agreements also often include invention or work product assignment provisions to establish, maintain, and protect our brand and other intellectual property rights. We may
also agree to license our intellectual property to third parties as part of various agreements.

As of March