Circle had been eyeing an entry into the stock market via a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp, a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The merger could not be completed before the expiration of the transaction agreement as the SEC has yet to declare the S4 registration statement ‘effective,’ as a Circle representative said.
A SPAC, otherwise known as a ‘blank check company,’ is a company with no business operations formed to raise capital via an Initial Public Offering or merging with another firm. The firm had been anticipating a 2022 date for the listing, with its CFO expecting the process to be completed at some point in the fourth quarter of this year.
The agreement between the two companies would have valued Circle at USD 9 billion, an increase from the USD 4.5 billion which was originally announced in July 2021. Circle is primarily known as the company behind stablecoin USDC, currently one of the largest cryptocurrencies and the second largest stablecoin by market capitalization exceeding USD 43 billion as per CoinGecko.
As representatives said, the move to terminate the agreement was disappointing for them, but Circle is still set on becoming a public company, with no clear deadline.
Back in November 2022 Circle added support for Apple Pay to enable crypto businesses to accept the payment method. While the iPhone maker doesn’t support crypto payment directly, USDC users have the option to make in-app purchases via credit or debit card through Apple Pay.
By partnering, Apple Pay and Circle’s Payments solution make it possible for crypto-native businesses to accept payments from customers who don’t use crypto at all.
A month earlier the company announced the launch of an institutional digital identity system based on Verite, an open-source framework for decentralized identity credentials. The solution makes it possible for institutions with Circle accounts and MetaMask institutional wallets to apply for KYB (Know Your Business) credentials, allowing web and mobile applications and smart contracts to verify user permissions (including usage rights, time, location, and others) for licensing on-chain activity.
Eligible businesses can have direct control over how, when, and where their identity attributes are shared, and will not send or store any personally identifiable data on-chain. Circle has partnered with TrueFi to support Verite KYB credentials to access TrueFi’s permission lending platform, which allows institutions to transact with authenticated counterparties they can trust.
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