Stablecoin Issuer Circle Files for IPOUpdate

By Connor Hart and Vicky Ge HuangCircle Internet Group, one of the crypto industry's biggest players, has filed with U.S. securities regulators to go public.Circle, whose core business maintains a U.S.-dollar-based stablecoin, didn't say Tuesday how many shares it would list or give an anticipated price range. The company plans to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL.Founded in 2013 by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville, Circle is best known for its USD Coin, a type of cryptocurrency that pegs its value to the U.S. dollar.USD Coin has a market capitalization of about $60 billion, second in the world among stablecoins behind Tether.Stablecoins are able to maintain a 1:1 ratio with a government currency because they are backed by a portfolio of short-term government debt and other near-cash assets. And in recent years, rising U.S. Treasury yield has helped lift the interest stablecoin issuers have collected on those reserves.The filing comes as U.S. lawmakers zero in on a measure that would provide stablecoin issuers with a regulatory framework, defining rules on reserves and customer protections.Circle posted a profit of $155.7 million in 2024, down from $267.6 million a year earlier. Total revenue came in at $1.68 billion last year, compared with $1.45 billion a year prior.The company said in Tuesday's regulatory filing that it will use the proceeds from its stock sale to satisfy tax withholding and remittance obligations in connection to certain stock-based compensation agreements that will vest as a result of the IPO. Additional proceeds would be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes.Ten firms, led by JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, were listed as the offering's underwriters.Circle's IPO comes after the company earlier this year bought Hashnote, the operator of a blockchain-based money-market fund with nearly $1.3 billion in assets.The company donated $1 million to President Trump's inaugural committee in January. The digital-assets industry emerged as one of the biggest spenders of the recent election cycle, fueled by Trump's pro-cryptocurrency stance.In December 2022, Circle ended a previous attempt to go public through a special purpose-acquisition merger after the catastrophic collapse of the FTX exchange. Then, in January 2024, the company had made a confidential IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by President Donald Trump and his family, recently unveiled plans to issue a stablecoin called USD1.Write to Connor Hart at [email protected]