A Brief History of Circle: The Regulated Stablecoin Giant
How USDC became one of the world’s most trusted stablecoins, and what sets Circle apart.
What is the most important thing for a stablecoin business?
Trust.
But building trust is not easy in the freewheeling world of cryptocurrencies.
The story of Circle is, at its core, the story of a company trying to build trust from the ground up, to make stablecoins truly stable.
The Early Days: Payment Solution with Bitcoin
Founded in 2013 by internet entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire and technologist Sean Neville, Circle began with a simple but ambitious idea: to make money work just like the internet—instant, open, and global.
“In early 2013, we saw a confluence of trends and major technologies emerging that led us to believe that now was the time to create a consumer internet company focused on changing how money worked. We saw that it was becoming possible to make money work for consumers the same way that communications and information sharing work for consumers on the internet -- instant, global, free, fun, and open.” —Sean Neville
Their first product, Circle Pay, was a mobile app launched in 2014 that allowed users to send and receive money using Bitcoin on the backend, while presenting a user experience similar to PayPal. It aimed to abstract away the complexity of cryptocurrencies, letting users transact in familiar currencies like U.S. dollars and euros, even though Bitcoin was used under the hood to facilitate those transfers.
The idea was brilliant, but it ran into a fundamental problem: Bitcoin’s price is too volatile, and most people prefer to hold it as digital gold rather than use it as digital money for everyday transactions.
In 2016, the company removed direct Bitcoin buying/selling from Circle Pay, and by 2019, the app was discontinued entirely.
That decision marked a strategic pivot away from Bitcoin payments toward stablecoin, and paved the way for USDC.
The Birth of USDC
In 2018, Circle partnered with Coinbase to launch USD Coin (USDC), a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars and short-term Treasuries.
USDC wasn’t the first stablecoin on the market, but it was the first one built from the ground up with compliance, transparency, and institutional trust in mind. Monthly attestations by Deloitte. Reserve custody at BNY Mellon. Real-time reporting. No offshore opacity.
This approach gave USDC a unique appeal. In a market dominated by Tether, whose reserves and governance had long been questioned, USDC offered something different: credibility.
And credibility brings trust.
The financial game, even if it’s on cryptocurrencies, is not completely about traffic, it’s about trust, especially the trust from banks, fintechs, governments and all large institutions.
Crisis and Response: The 2023 SVB Collapse
The biggest test of Circle’s model came in March 2023.
When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed overnight, it was revealed that $3.3 billion of USDC’s reserves were held there. Panic ensued. USDC briefly lost its peg, trading as low as $0.88.
But within 48 hours, U.S. regulators guaranteed SVB’s deposits, and Circle swiftly moved all reserves to BNY Mellon and the Circle Reserve Fund managed by BlackRock. The peg was restored, and USDC didn’t break again.
Rather than sink the company, the crisis validated Circle’s transparency-first model. The company had been open about its reserve locations. It had published attestations monthly. And it had the operational maturity to act fast when things went south.
It was a defining moment, and a turning point.
Going Public
On June 5, 2025, Circle went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker $CRCL, raising $1.1 billion at an initial offering price of $31 per share, giving the company a market cap of $6.9 billion.
But what happened next surprised even optimistic backers.
Shares opened at $69, more than double the IPO price, and closed the day at $83.23, a 168% gain in just a few hours. That performance made it one of the strongest tech IPOs of the year, signaling massive investor confidence in the long-term viability of compliant, revenue-generating crypto infrastructure.
Analysts cited three reasons for the surge:
Profitability: Circle wasn’t just growing, it was already profitable, rare in both crypto and fintech IPOs.
Regulatory readiness: As the U.S. neared a formal stablecoin framework, Circle looked like the most IPO-ready issuer.
Institutional trust: With backing from BlackRock, Fidelity, and Coinbase, Circle had the endorsement of traditional finance.
The IPO also catapulted CEO Jeremy Allaire into the billionaire class, on paper at least, cementing his place among the most influential founders in crypto.
Unlike many crypto firms whose value is tied to volatile tokens, Circle’s business model, earning yield on fully reserved stablecoins, offered a predictable revenue stream tied to interest rates, with over 98% of its revenue coming from interest on USDC’s fully backed reserves.
It was one of the rare crypto companies to not only survive the bear market, but come out of it profitable, regulated, and public.
Building Around Regulation
At the heart of Circle’s strategy is a belief that regulation isn’t a threat, it’s a moat.
While competitors like Tether chose offshore jurisdictions and minimal disclosures, Circle went the other direction: applying for money transmitter licenses in 46 U.S. states, registering in the EU under MiCA, acquiring a Major Payments Institution license in Singapore, and operating under scrutiny.
Its leadership reflects that ethos. CEO Jeremy Allaire continues to be one of the most vocal advocates for stablecoin legislation in Washington. Heath Tarbert, former chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, now serves as Circle’s President. And Dante Disparte, formerly of Facebook’s Diem project, leads global strategy and policy.
Circle isn’t just complying with regulation, it’s helping write the playbook for it.
Beyond the Dollar: The Expanding Circle Ecosystem
Today, Circle’s ambitions extend far beyond USDC.
It now issues Euro Coin (EURC), a euro-backed stablecoin built with the same transparency as USDC.
It’s expanding cross-chain functionality with its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP).
It offers business APIs and developer tools that power real-world apps, from DeFi protocols to fintech platforms and remittance networks.
USDC itself now runs on more than a dozen blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Base. And new use cases keep emerging: Visa has used USDC to settle transactions; MoneyGram partnered with Circle to enable USDC cash-outs in developing markets.
And though USDC’s market cap (~$60B as of mid-2025) is still behind Tether’s, its transaction volume recently surpassed USDT’s. It’s not just being held, it’s being used.
Trust Is the Product
At its core, Circle’s real innovation isn’t technical.
It’s cultural.
Unlike many crypto startups at the time, Circle wasn’t interested in playing fast and loose with the rules.
From its early years, Circle positioned itself as a regulated on-ramp to the world of digital currencies. Though it took a few years, and a major pivot, for Circle to find its true product-market fit.
In an industry plagued by collapse, fraud, and offshore opacity, Circle bet on transparency, accountability, and regulatory integration. And while that made its growth slower at times, it also made the company built to last.
After all, regulation, in the stablecoin business, is the biggest moat.
Final Thoughts
The crypto space has no shortage of hype. But Circle offers something different: a boring, stable, well-regulated company quietly powering the financial rails of tomorrow.
Its journey, from Bitcoin wallet to global infrastructure provider, has redefined what it means to issue a “stable” coin.
And if the future of money is digital, programmable, and always on, don’t be surprised if Circle is right there at the center of it.