Circle has announced that it plans to develop into a public firm. The cryptocurrency firm will merge with Harmony Acquisition Corp, a SPAC. Circle is best generally known as one of many founding members of the Centre consortium with Coinbase. Together with different crypto partners, they’ve issued USD Coin (USDC), a preferred stablecoin.
A SPAC is a publicly traded blank-check firm. Merging with a SPAC has develop into a preferred solution to develop into a publicly listed firm for tech corporations.
In keeping with Circle, the deal ought to worth the corporate at $4.5 billion. Traders concerned within the merger have dedicated $415 million in PIPE financing. The corporate additionally not too long ago raised $440 million in capital. In different phrases, Circle may have loads of capital on its palms if the merger goes by way of.
Created in 2013, the corporate initially wished to create a mainstream bitcoin cost platform. However the firm later pivoted to create a social funds app. Circle grew to become a type of Venmo clone with some blockchain expertise beneath the hood. Sooner or later, Circle even eliminated the flexibility to ship and obtain bitcoins.
“We by no means considered ourselves as a bitcoin startup. The media definitely categorized us that manner as a result of we have been concerned with the expertise. From the day we based the corporate three years in the past we’ve centered on attempting to construct a brand new shopper finance firm. And one which makes cash work the best way the Web works,” Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire informed TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas in 2016.
Whereas that shopper play didn’t take off, it’s attention-grabbing to see that Allaire was already enthusiastic about with the ability to programmatically transfer cash. In 2017 and 2018, the corporate pivoted as soon as once more to concentrate on cryptocurrencies. It launched an over-the-counter buying and selling desk for large cryptocurrency traders.
It acquired Poloniex, one of many largest cryptocurrency exchanges within the U.S. on the time. It additionally launched Circle Make investments, a extremely easy cell app that allow you to purchase and promote a handful of crypto belongings.
However Circle’s most promising product has been its stablecoin — USD Coin, or USDC for brief. Because the title suggests, 1 USDC is all the time price 1 USD. Not like conventional cryptocurrencies, you may make certain that the worth of USDC isn’t going to fluctuate like loopy. Auditing companies commonly verify that issuers all the time preserve as many USD in financial institution accounts as USDC in circulation.
With USDC, shifting cash from one pockets to a different turns into as simple as utilizing commonplace API calls. The corporate has then added numerous infrastructure merchandise round USDC, comparable to Circle Accounts. Circle has additionally constructed ramps to bridge the hole between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies.
There are at present $25 billion USDC in circulation and the corporate believes there’ll $190 billion USDC in circulation by the top of 2023. And Circle plans to leverage the recognition of USDC to construct monetary providers that reap the benefits of USDC.
