Circle, the $3 billion global crypto finance company backed by Goldman Sachs, is changing the world of crypto as we know it.  In a blog post published today by co-founders, Sean Neville, and Jeremy Allaire, Circle will introduce a USD-Backed Cryptocurrency.  USDC, as it’s called, is a cryptocurrency “stablecoin” tied to the value of the U.S. dollar and backed by physical dollars stored in bank accounts. 

As Circle’s website states, the technology allows users to “invest in crypto even if you’ve never invested in crypto.”  Circle was launched in 2013 by Allaire‎ and Neville in Boston, MA and has been on a "mission to change the global economy" ever since. 

“When we founded Circle five years ago, we and many in the crypto community envisioned fiat money and financial contracts executing on top of distributed public network infrastructure, building on open standards that would allow us all to share value as instantly and easily as we can access content in web browsers and exchange messages in email and messaging apps.  Just as HTTPS, SMTP, and SIP-enabled free borderless information sharing and communications, crypto assets, and blockchain technology will enable us to exchange value and transact with one another in a similar way: instantly, globally, securely and at low cost,” Neville and Allaire explained in the announcement. 

The stablecoin was developed in collaboration with Circle’s CENTRE affiliate consortium and allows individuals and institutions to “deposit US dollars from bank accounts, convert those dollars into tokens usable everywhere the internet reaches (subject to the token’s compliance controls), and redeem USDC tokens and cash out to bank accounts.” 

30 essential partners across the industry including DigiFinex, CoinEx, Poloniex, KuCoin, OKCoin, Ledger, Coinplug, BitPay, and many other platforms, exchanges, applications, protocols, and wallets have announced their support for USDC.  These partnerships will allow retail companies and investors around the world to use a price-stable cryptocurrency to trade against all digital assets. 

Allaire said in an interview back in May, “there's a need for a "compliant alternative" to Tether.”  Poloniex, Circle’s cryptocurrency exchange, appears to be that alternative, as it aims to replace the controversial Tether (USDT) with USDC, though he did not give a timetable for this transition.