Circle Partners With BlackRock, Reveals $400M Funding Round
- BlackRock, the main asset manager for the USDC cash reserves, will now explore the capital market applications for the USDC stablecoin.
- The $400 million funding round, which is expected to complete in the second quarter, will see participation from Fidelity, Marshall Wace, Fin Capital, and BlackRock.
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Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has entered into an agreement for a $400 million funding round that is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, the company said in a press release on 12 April.
According to the announcement, the funding round will see investments from several prominent firms, including investment advisory company Fidelity Management and Research, hedge fund Marshall Wace, Fin Capital, and the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock. The funding round aims to promote Circle’s development, and the growing demand for a USD-based digital currency. The co-founder and CEO of Circle, Jeremy Allaire, said in a statement:
“Dollar digital currencies like USDC are fueling a global economic transformation, and Circle’s technology infrastructure sits at the center of that change. This funding round will drive the next evolution of Circle’s growth.”
The funding round was no the only announcement on Tuesday, with Circle revealing it had entered into a new “broader strategic partnership with BlackRock. In addition to being the main asset manager for the USDC cash reserves, BlackRock will now explore the capital market applications for the USDC stablecoin.
USDC is currently the fifth largest cryptocurrency, and second largest stablecoin, by market cap with almost $51 billion in circulation across multiple blockchains. The issuer of the stablecoin, Circle, announced back in February its intentions of going public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition Corp, at a valuation of $9 billion.
- The digital ID project said Orb Operators received USDC payments as part of the project’s transitional phase after launch, and now that it is nearing its end Worldcoin will be switching to WLD payments.
- Worldcoin warned Orb Operators to check if they can claim rewards in their region as WLD are not available in the United States and “certain other restricted territories”.
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- Investment firms Invesco and WisdomTree both followed the example of BlackRock from last week, and filed for their own spot Bitcoin ETFs with the U.S. SEC.
- Although the SEC is yet to approve a single spot Bitcoin ETF product, ETF analysts say there is a good chance BlackRock is the first considering its history with ETFs.
- SVB Financial Group has filed for a Chapter 11 court-supervised reorganization in the U.S. in order to “preserve value”.
- The company stressed it is no longer affiliated with Silicon Valley Bank, the closure of which sent ripples across the crypto industry.