USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO in the US

Circle Internet Financial Inc., the issuer of a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, has filed for an initial public offering enabling it to sell shares and become a publicly traded company.

The company announced today that it confidentially filed a draft registration form S-1 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission that will allow it the flexibility to decide what shape its offering will take.

Circle did not reveal the number of shares that will be offered or the price range for the proposed offering. The IPO is expected to be completed after the SEC makes its final review of the process.

The company is the issuer of a USD Coin, a stablecoin, which is a type of cryptocurrency that is pegged to the U.S. dollar so that it remains in close one-to-one parity with that currency with very little fluctuation in value. To date, USDC remains the second largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of $25 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Circle backs USDC with an equivalent amount of dollar-denominated assets held by the company with U.S. financial institutions in a reserve fund. Due to their low volatility, stablecoins have become popular for trades between cryptocurrency exchanges.

The company initially formed plans to go public with a  SPAC merger deal with Concord Acquisition Corp. in 2021, which was valued at $9 billion in February 2022. However, the two companies mutually ended the proposed merger in December 2022 after failing to gain SEC approval.

Circle raised $400 million in its last funding round in April 2022 from notable venture capital firms including multinational investment firm BlackRock Inc., advisory firm Fidelity Management and Research, London-based hedge fund Marshall Wallace LLP and Fin Capital. According to Crunchbase, the stablecoin issuer has raised a total of $1.1 billion total funding.

The news of Circle’s IPO comes a day after the SEC approved 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, a type of investment fund that tracks the price of the cryptocurrency on traditional stock exchanges. BlackRock was among the approved funds.

Image: Circle