Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, doubled its valuation following a new agreement with Concord Acquisition Corporation (NYSE:CND).
The two corporations first revealed this merger plan in July, and at the time, Circle had a valuation of just $4.5 billion. The agreement terms have now been updated to reflect the enhancements in the company’s competitive position and financial outlook.
Management statements
Circle’s Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Allaire, told “Crypto World”, a show on CNBC, that while the company is ready to be publicly listed, the process of acquiring the required approvals by the SEC had taken way longer than expected.
Why? Because in a previous agreement, the companies were worried they won’t complete the merger before the April 3 deadline. This new agreement replaces the earlier deal and allows them more time to finish the merger. Mr Allaire said:
We have an SEC qualification process that we’re going through, we’ve been through multiple rounds of comments on that and that’s just taking longer.
The CEO confirmed the necessity of the extra time to a new industry and company and claimed that the company would be better off in the long run if approved. Jeremy continued:
There’s a lot of inherent risk in this space… as a company that wants to be trusted, transparent, and accountable, being a public company really helps with that. But also, going through the rigor of SEC review is a key part of that.
What is USDC?
USDC is Circle’s stablecoin.
What’s a stablecoin? A stablecoin is a digital currency made to be way less volatile compared to other cryptos by pegging its market value to fiat currencies such as the Euro or the US dollar.
This allows them to act as potential bridge currencies between the more traditional, stable assets and volatile cryptocurrency assets.
Circle’s USDC stablecoin has grown in both popularity and reach over the last twelve months. For instance, Mastercard said it is planning a program that’ll use USDC to allow for crypto payments between cardholders and merchants.
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