Circle, Creators of USDC Stablecoin, Secured 440M in The Largest Crypto Private Investment

The success of the fundraising effort helps detail the influx of traditional finance backing into the crypto landscape.

A Successful Venture

The firm responsible for the $22 billion stablecoin, USDC, completed $440 Million in private investment financing. Five of the nine largest Decentralized Finance (DeFi) investments in history have occurred so far in 2021. The funds for Circle are expected to help increase the development of market expansion and growth for the fastest-growing, regulated, and fully-reserved stablecoin in DeFi. 

Circle announced the news on their website on Friday, May 28. According to Forbes, principal investors include Fidelity Management and Research Company, Marshall Wace, Digital Currency Group, FTX, and Breyer Capital. USDC has become an integral part of decentralized capital markets as it marries traditional markets with emerging digital ones. Circle believes the funds will help them meet the rapidly growing demand for stable coins internationally. 

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder & CEO of Circle, stated that his team is “thrilled and humbled by the support.” The thrill comes after impressive work in the first quarter of 2021. USDC hit a $10 billion market cap in March, a more than double jump from $4.5 billion in January. Overall, the USDC stablecoin processed over $615 billion in transactions in the past year. It sits firmly behind Tether as the second-largest stablecoin in DeFi.

What is The Significance of Stablecoins?

Stablecoins are cryptos that peg their value to some external entity. Stablecoins have become popular for providing stability to investors. In the case of USDC, it is pegged to the US dollar and provides a bridge to crypto for nascent investors into DeFi from traditional investing. Tether (USDT), which is the largest stablecoin, is backed by different fiat currencies and collaterals like the dollar but also the Euro or Yen. Companies like Circle and Tether hope to make crypto accessible by building connections between traditional finance and DeFi.

The supply of USDC is increasing rapidly across a number of platforms and swaps, including Stellar, Algorand, and Solana. Circle also recently partnered with one of the industry’s fastest-growing crypto-exchanges, FTX, to provide payments and treasury infrastructure. They even joined with Visa to begin facilitating transactions on the platform in December of last year. The platform’s APIs are providing a new generation with avenues to engage in financial prosperity. 

As DeFi continues its ongoing expansion cycle, 2021 is becoming the year of crypto. Beyond Circle’s latest deal, BlockFi, Dapper Labs, and Blockchain.com all raised $300 million or more in March 2021. All these deals represent a shift in investments finding their way to crypto. Allaire, Circle’s CEO, continued in his excitement by expressing transformational change coming from Web 3.0. 

About Circle and USDC

Circle is a global financial technology firm and was the key developer behind USDC. Along with Coinbase and the Centre Consortium it helps maintain the standards and protocol of the coin. USDC continues to have impressive growth and refine itself within the Ethereum ecosystem. Adoption of USDC across trading, payments, and lending has helped it grow to be one of the fastest-growing regulated digital dollar currencies globally. With the influx of cash, Circle is ready to meet significant product and service demands.

Source : bsc.news