Circle Partners With Genesis to Advance USDC Use in Traditional Finance

As part of the deal, Digital Currency Group (DCG) has invested $25 million in Circle. The money from Genesis’s parent company will help fund the promotion of Circle’s services.

Big Names in Cryptocurrency Push Stablecoin Use in TradFi

The combined market cap of all U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins recently hit more than $12 billion. This time last year the figure stood at less than $5 billion. Clearly, stablecoin adoption is growing rapidly. The Circle-launched USDC makes up just $1.1 billion of the market. Although small relative to the likes of USDT, USDC has witnessed rapid growth in recent months. Earlier this year, $400 million worth of USDC existed. Today, that figure is more than $1.1 billion. As BeInCrypto reported in March, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire believes that the Coronavirus pandemic has increased the appeal of stablecoins like USDC. Some of this growth is part of a “flight to safety” from cryptocurrency price volatility. Yet other metrics suggest business adoption is also rapidly growing. Researchers at Messari estimate a total stablecoin volume of almost $600 billion for 2020. The figure is closing in on PayPal’s reported 2019 volume of $712 billion. The recent partnership announced via press release on Thursday aims to maximize USDC growth in a rapidly expanding market. Circle and Genesis hope to push the stablecoin into more traditional finance with a new suite of business products. As part of the deal, the parent company of Genesis, the Digital Currency Group, has invested $25 million in Circle. The money will go towards the promotion of the firm’s products. Although scant on details, the release states that the partnership will work on solutions for companies “seeking to generate strong positive yield from their own and customer’s USDC holdings”. This will include access to stablecoin credit services. Jeremy Allaire commented on the new partnership:

“Combining Circle’s powerful capabilities with USDC payments and platform infrastructure for businesses, with Genesis’s global institutional underwriting capabilities, will allow us to deliver significant value to companies holding and using USDC as part of their business.”

Further details surrounding the services and products coming to market are expected later this year.