Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-08-04
Form Type: DRS
Source: 0000950123-25-006942
Chunk: 195

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-08-04
Form: DRS
Chunk 195
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 exchanges, digital consumer finance platforms, and many other advances that have expanded the global reach of financial services with the utilization of mobile devices and software.

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CONFIDENTIAL TREATMENT REQUESTED BY CIRCLE INTERNET GROUP, INC. PURSUANT TO 17 C.F.R. § 200.83 However, many challenges persist as a result of the legacy infrastructure on which these platforms are built, existing regulatory and market structures disincentivizing fundamental innovation, and a lack of the global connectivity and interoperability required for truly internet-scale financial services. We believe that an internet-based, blockchain-enabled financial system will address and resolve the most pertinent structural issues within financial services today:

| • |     | High costs: More than $120 trillion in global business-to-business payments are processed annually,                                                                                                                                                 
 according to Visa. Much of these payments are made using legacy infrastructure, such as checks and bank wires. Businesses seeking to accept payments from customers are often 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