BREAKING NEWS: @circle has announced that we are moving our Global HQ to New York City, building out a flagship space on one of the top floors of 1 World Trade Center, an historically important landmark in standing for American global economic leadership. Details below the video.
I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone with an event including leading financial industry firms, crypto industry leaders and policymakers. We are also sharing this announcement video that captures the moment and inspiration.
Why is this important for Crypto, Circle, New York, America and the US Dollar?
Since our founding, we have envisioned building a new internet financial system on the foundations of crypto – open networks, open source software, open protocols, decentralized and distributed infrastructure – and building on and expanding the capabilities of the largest and most important currencies in the world, starting with the US dollar.
11 years into our founding, that vision is coming alive in a tremendous and exciting way, with USDC now powering trillions of dollars of onchain transactions, with thousands of developers and applications building on this innovation, and with increasing legal clarity that digital dollars like USDC are new forms of legal electronic money that can be used widely around the world.
As this technology explodes into the mainstream, and as Circle becomes a more and more important company and infrastructure for this new internet financial system, it became clear that we needed to plant our flag, both literally and figuratively, in the heart of Wall Street, in the most important economic center of the world, and in the great country of the United States of America.
Many complain that the United States is not the right jurisdiction to build a company in our industry, and that the current government here remains hostile to this industry. I couldn’t disagree more. My view is that we are at a turning point, and that the US is about to become THE decisive leader in building and supporting this technology and financial revolution.
We are an American Technology champion, and we want to demonstrate that the highest quality, the best run, the safest and the most powerful technology for the new internet financial system calls not just the US, but New York City, it’s home.
Today, New York City is home to an enormous number of crypto firms that are leading and innovating in nearly every area of this industry. New York may have the most talent-density in crypto of any city in the world. It’s truly astounding, and we feel so privileged to join this thriving community of companies with a flagship headquarters in New York.
After having originally founded the company in Boston, like many technology-driven companies, we have scaled out largely as a remote-first operation. Today, we span 36 US states and 14 countries, with a presence in many of the world’s leading cities including New York, SF Bay Area, Boston, London, Dublin, Paris, Singapore, Berlin, São Paulo, Taipei and more. And we are growing all around the world. But through this, New York has become a crucial nexus of talent, connectivity and a core location for where we convene.
1 World Trade Center is an awe-inspiring building. Its history is known to nearly everyone; this iconic tower, the tallest in the Western hemisphere, stands for freedom, strength, and a projection of America’s central role in the global economic system. Freedom Tower stands above the great pillars of the global economic system – Wall St., the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Federal Reserve, and more.
Sitting on a top floor of the tower, Circle’s new flagship HQ is being built not as a traditional office, but rather as a powerful convening space, where we bring together all of our stakeholders to collaborate together, discover, and build the new internet financial system. It’s going to be an amazing and inspiring space that helps bring to life everything that we do at Circle.
Today, we are celebrating this new HQ, joined in person in New York by industry, political and key partners who have been central to Circle’s growth and success. Join us virtually in this next phase of our journey.
We are investing in New York. We are investing in America. We believe strongly that the infrastructure we are collectively building – this new internet financial system – will be the foundation for the next hundred years of global economic activity and coordination.
2024 has been a turning point year in crypto, a year when stablecoins started to truly breakout in scale, importance and usage. 2025 will be the year when this goes mainstream. As we open our new HQ to the world in early 2025, we will be thrilled to host and convene and see many of you there for this next phase of our collective journey in building a more open, inclusive, safer and efficient global economic system.
JA
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1/ Some major news from @circle and @coinbase on the future of $USDC in this joint blog post from @brian_armstrong and I (@jerallaire). circle.com/blog/ushering-…
Five years ago, we embarked on launching a new protocol for dollars on the internet (USDC), and came together with @coinbase to deliver on the vision of open, transparent and trusted dollar stablecoins. What started as a simple vision, has grown enormously.
And five years ago, there were no clear regulations around how to safely operate a trusted and transparent stablecoin, so we came together to create Centre Consortium to try and provide governance around USDC.
1/ We are getting lots of color and perspective from the market, and wanted share some of what I am seeing. There seems to be a large-scale risk-off from USD that is exposed to US banks and US regulatory risk.
2/ Deep market anxiety about general exposure to the US financial system, given aggressive regulatory actions on crypto and the risk of a large scale US banking system failure.
3/ Ironically, the players who have had the strongest position with US regulation and US banking system integration, are considered "un-safe", with fears that assets could be stranded.
We were heartened to see the US government and financial regulators take crucial steps to mitigate risks extending from the fractional banking system.
100% of deposits from SVB are secure and will be available at banking open tomorrow.
100% of USDC reserves are also safe and secure, and we will complete our transfer for remaining SVB cash to BNY Mellon.
As previously shared, liquidity operations for USDC will resume at banking open tomorrow morning.
With the closure of Signature bank announced tonight, we will not be able to process minting and redemption through SigNet, we will be relying on settlements through BNY Mellon.
Tl;Dr: While USDC can be used 24/7/365 on chain, issuance and redemption is constrained by the working hours of the U.S. banking system.
USDC liquidity operations will resume as normal when banks open on Monday morning in the United States. As a practical matter, our teams are… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
What just happened?
Silicon Valley Bank, a venerable and trusted partner to the US innovation economy, has just suffered a classic bank run, much like those we saw during the financial crisis in 2008.
Few traditional banks have sufficient liquidity to withstand such a run.
1/ Some big @circle news. This morning, we announced the termination of our proposed deSPAC transaction. While disappointing that we did not complete SEC qualification in time, we remain focused on building a long-term public company. circle.com/en/pressroom/c…
2/ From my perspective, I believe that the SEC has been rigorous and thorough in understanding our business and many novel aspects of this industry. This kind of review is necessary to ultimately provide trust, transparency and accountability for major companies in crypto.
3/ We also today shared our high-level Q3 financial results, with $274M in revenue, $43M in Net Income, and ~$400M on our balance. We are strong, growing, profitable and in the best financial position we've ever been in.
1/ Lots of FUD accruing out there, so another thread to help dispel the noise.
2/ Circle has no material exposure to FTX and Alameda. FTX has been a customer of Circle Payment APIs for the past 18 months, providing card and ACH services for customer transactions. Circle's crypto payments beta product uses FTX and other exchanges, for BTC/ETH liquidity.
3/ Alameda has been a customer of Circle for many years, using Circle's USDC service for creating and redeeming USDC. They have the exact same product and same terms of use as all of our institutional customers.