Circle, the firm behind USD Coin (USDC), is poised to impact Wall Street with its upcoming U.S. IPO, targeting a $6.7 billion valuation. The company’s growth has been fueled by over $1.1 billion in funding from leading investors. Early backers included Accel Partners, General Catalyst, and Breyer Capital, with Goldman Sachs later joining in a landmark vote of confidence. The company’s $440 million funding round in 2021, one of the year’s largest fintech raises, supported global expansion and product innovation.
In January 2025, Circle completed a strategic $100 million acquisition of Hashnote, a leading tokenisation platform and issuer of the U.S. Yield Coin (USYC), a tokenised money market fund. This move expands Circle’s reach into the fast-growing real-world asset (RWA) sector and strengthens its institutional product suite.
The company aims to secure $624 million by selling 24 million Class A common shares, priced between $24 and $26 per share. This pricing would value Circle approximately $6.71 billion, a major milestone for the stablecoin market. The offering will comprise 9.6 million new shares from Circle, while existing investors will sell 14.4 million shares.
This approach allows Circle to raise new capital while providing liquidity to early backers who have supported the company for over a decade. Circle plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRCL,” with J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs serving as lead underwriters.
Behind Circle: “a new internet financial system”
Founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire and technologist Sean Neville, Circle has evolved from an ambitious Boston startup into the world’s second-largest stablecoin operator. USDC, Circle’s flagship product, has grown into a $60 billion digital asset trusted by millions of users and over a thousand businesses globally.
Circle was established to tackle fundamental inefficiencies in traditional finance, particularly in cross-border payments and digital commerce. Conventional international transfers typically involve multiple intermediaries, high fees, slow settlement times, and limited transparency. Circle’s stablecoin technology aims to create “a new internet financial system” enabling instant, global, and cost-effective value transfer.
The company’s core innovation is a digital currency infrastructure that bridges traditional finance with blockchain technology. USDC is a fully backed digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar, designed for faster cross-border payments and enhanced financial accessibility. Circle combines the dollar’s stability with blockchain’s efficiency and programmability by maintaining reserves in cash and short-term U.S. government securities.
In May 2025, Circle launched the Circle Payments Network (CPN), a blockchain-based system designed to modernise the $190 trillion cross-border payments market. CPN enables financial institutions to settle transactions near-real time using USDC, supporting B2B supplier payments, remittances, treasury management, and mass disbursements. Early adopters include Alfred Pay (Brazil), Tazapay (Hong Kong), RedotPay (Brazil), and Conduit (U.S./Europe/Mexico).
Solving the inefficiencies of traditional finance
Circle’s mission is clear: solve traditional finance’s inefficiencies — slow, costly, and opaque cross-border payments — by building a transparent, instant, and programmable alternative. USDC is fully backed by cash and short-term U.S. government securities, with monthly audits, positioning itself as the “safe, compliant” choice for institutions and individuals alike.
Circle’s main rival is Tether (USDT), which leads in market cap but faces scrutiny over reserve transparency. Other players include Binance USD (BUSD) and decentralised options like DAI, but regulatory and operational challenges have narrowed the field. Circle also competes with Ripple, Stellar, PayPal, and Square in the broader payments and fintech space. Circle’s emphasis on compliance and transparency provides a distinct advantage as regulatory oversight increases.
Circle’s approach tackles key pain points in the existing financial infrastructure. Traditional banking systems often exclude underbanked populations and impose geographic restrictions. Circle’s blockchain-based approach enables 24/7 operations, global accessibility, and programmable money features that automate complex financial operations. This infrastructure supports everything from individual remittances to sophisticated decentralised finance (DeFi) applications.
Circle’s infrastructure now handles over 100 million transactions, serves over 10 million retail customers, and supports over 1,000 businesses. USDC’s growth to over $60 billion in circulation demonstrates the platform’s scalability and reliability, with approximately $504 billion minted and $464 billion redeemed between January 2021 and December 2024.
Why now?
Circle’s IPO marks the maturation of the stablecoin industry and the growing integration of digital assets into traditional finance. Austin King, co-founder of blockchain platform Omni Network, describes the IPO as “a bellwether moment for the entire crypto ecosystem” and “validation of everything the industry has been building toward: real infrastructure, institutional integration, and public-market readiness.”
The timing aligns with regulatory tailwinds: In May 2025, the U.S. Senate advanced the GENIUS Act, the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins. The act mandates full reserve backing, monthly disclosures, and annual audits for large issuers — requirements that Circle already meets.
A successful Circle IPO could encourage other cryptocurrency companies to pursue public listings, potentially accelerating digital assets’ institutionalisation. With improved regulatory clarity and growing institutional acceptance of cryptocurrency infrastructure, Circle’s public market performance will likely influence investor sentiment toward the broader digital asset sector. The company’s commitment to regulatory compliance and traditional financial integration positions it to benefit from digital currency technology’s continued mainstream adoption.
Ultimately, Circle aims to become the “financial utility layer of the internet,” an AWS or SWIFT for programmable money, combining regulatory-grade transparency with blockchain speed and efficiency.
