Circle

Circle is a cryptocurrency platform whose origins are in cryptocurrency payment technology but whose interests have expanded into investments, OTC services and cryptocurrency trading.
Circle Internet Financial was launched in October 2013 with $9 million in investments. In late April 2015, Goldman Sachs announced that along with IDG Capital Partners it was planning to lead a $50 million financing round into Circle. 
== Business Overview ==
In late February 2018 Circle announced that it was purchasing Poloniex, one of the largest cryptocurrency markets at the time. Listing more than 100 cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency pairs, Poloniex was the 35th largest cryptocurrency trading platform globally by volume in late September 2018 according to CoinMarketCap, an online data aggregator and reporting service. 
Bloomberg reported in June that Circle was planning to apply for both banking and securities licenses so its customers could deposit insurable funds with it and trade cryptocurrencies that might be deemed to be securities under U.S. regulations.
In May 2019, sources from Circle reported that the company had revised its fundraising goal from $250 million to $150 million, a decrease of 40 percent. On Twitter, Circle co-founder Jeremy Allaire said that 30 positions had been "eliminated" within the company. Allaire said this was due to "new market conditions" and an "increasingly restrictive regulatory climate in the United States. Another employee at Circle said that "no one from the trade desk got cut." In September 2019, Circle said that it would suspend its research reports to allow it "time to evaluate our contribution and overall strategy." 
According to CoinDesk, Sean Neville told the Circle board of directors in a December 2019 email that he would step down from his role as co-chairman at the end of the month. He said that he would stay on in an executive role with the company.
=== SeedInvest acquisition ===
In October 2018, Circle co-founders Allaire and Sean Neville announced that Circle would acquire crowdfunding Internet platform, SeedInvest, which also included a registered brokder dealer, SI Securities. According to the co-founders, "The SeedInvest product includes many of the end-to-end capabilities needed for executing regulated crowdfunding, including startup due diligence, securities issuance, investor accreditation, payments and securities custody, as well as a broad range of innovative tools for startups to market their crowdfunding offerings online in a compliant fashion. With the merger and approval from key regulators, these capabilities will be expanded to support crypto-denominated investments including using fiat stablecoins such as USDC, as well as issuing and offering tokenized securities."
Circle reported on March 4, that the transaction had been approved by U.S. self-regulatory organization FINRA and was closed.
On April 26, 2019, Circle and SeedInvest revealed in a blogpost that SeedInvest had been approved by Finra to operate an ATS which will let it trade equities.
In August 2019, Circle posted on its job board that it was looking for a general partner for a $100 million venture capital fund for SeedInvest.
=== Circle shares offered at discount on alternative investment platform ===
In February 2019, The Block reported that private shares of Circle were being offered at a massive discount on SharesPost, a platform] for accredited investors to exchange shares of private companies (the discounted shares were being sold at $3.80, while shares of Circle at the time of its Series E fundraise in May 2018 were being sold at $16.23). This implied a significant disparity in the company's total valuation ($3.01 billion vs. $705 million), depending on the number of shares that were being sold at the discounted price. The story said it was unclear how many shares were being offered at this price. 
=== Bermuda ===
Circle received a Digital Assets Business Act license from Bermuda in July 2019 and the company announced in a blog post that it would move the Poloniex business and operations supporting non-U.S. residents to an office in Bermuda. After a transition period, the non-U.S. customers will be moved to the new "Circle International Bermuda" entity. The company said that its new Bermuda license covers the operation of payment services, custody, exchange, trading and other financial services for digital assets. The company also indicated that it would expand its list of tradable instruments for non-U.S. persons.
Having been bought by Circle a year earlier in July 2018, Poloniex's rank had fallen to 77th largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, the fifth largest U.S.-based exchange behind Kraken (42), Coinbase Pro (43), Bittrex (51), and Gemini (73), according to CoinMarketCap. By July 2019, according to Circle, 70% of Poloniex's customers were based outside of the United States. 
=== Kraken and Binance ===
On January 7, 2020, Binance announced it would be dropping support for certain trading pairs with USDC. The exchange's founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted that it was "nothing personal," and that the reason Binance was dropping support for it was that "nobody's trading it." The next day, Kraken announced that deposits and trading for USDC would go live on Wednesday, January 8. 
=== IPO === 
With total issuance outstanding of USDC worth $26 billion, Circle announced in a July 8, 2021 blog post that it would combine with Concord Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company that is already publicly traded. Once the transaction is final, the resulting company will be called Circle and will become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CRCL, according to the blog post.
== Products and services ==
=== Circle Trade ===
Circle Trade was developed to respond to internal demand for liquidity stemming from customers' use of its cryptocurrency app. It grew into being a major presence in the institutional OTC cryptocurrency marketplace. In June and July 2019, Circle Trade faced a number of staff departures as both its head of trading, Dan Matuszewski, and its head of institutional sales, Beatrice O’Carroll, left the operation along with at least four other employees. 
In a blog post regarding its outlook for 2020 business, Circle announced that it had sold the Circle Trade OTC business to Kraken as it deepened its focus on its stablecoin market development, saying, "Circle is approaching 2020 with a deep focus on stablecoins globally, dollars on public blockchains (USDC) specifically, and the powerful possibilities they unlock for people, businesses, and governments all around the world." 
=== Stablecoin ===
In September 2018, Circle launched the Centre Consortium to develop and launch a new stablecoin called USD Coin (or USDC) tied to the U.S. dollar. The company was joined by the U.S.-based exchange Coinbase in October 2018.
On January 17, 2019, the Centre Consortium published an attestation provided by the independent accounting firm Grant Thornton to Circle that Circle held $251,211,209 in custody accounts against the total issuance of 251,211,148 USDC.
In late January 2019, Circle released a report that over 100 crypto-focused businesses, including exchanges, wallets, platforms, apps, and service providers had adopted USD Coin.
In December 2020, Circle announced via a blog post that the company had entered into a partnership with Visa to allow Visa-supported businesses to transfer USDC over public blockchains. The blog post also said that Circle customers would have the option to have a Circle Visa business credit card that would allow account holders to spend USDC at all merchants that accept Visa.
==== API (Circle Business Account) ====
In March 2020, Circle announced that its client businesses could sign up for Circle Business Accounts. Circle Business Accounts are application program interfaces (APIs), software tools that allow different kinds of software (like payment systems) to integrate with each other regardless of whether they were originally designed to function together. The Circle API allows companies to connect their traditional banking infrastructure to the software necessary for integrating Circle into their payment and custody services, as well as developing other products and services that use USDC. 
The APIs support making global payments in traditional and USDC channels, receiving USDC payments, managing USDC accounts and managing internet marketplaces priced in USDCs for businesses.
== John Lothian News == 
Circle was highlighted in a recap of Consensus 2018 by CMW contributing editor Chuck Mackie. You can read the article here.
== References ==
Category:Trading
Category:Cryptocurrency
Category:stablecoin
Category:CryptoMarketsWiki