Circle eyes stablecoin platform as OTC Desk sold to Kraken
Back in October, prominent P2P payments technology company, Circle, made quite a buzz after cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex was delineated and terminated support for customers from the United States. The platform is making headlines again after it announced that it would be pivoting towards and concentrating solely on stablecoins.
Stablecoins seem to be garnering immense attention from institutions across the globe. With several countries and mainstream companies veering into the same, Circle isn’t planning to be left behind. In a recent blog post, founders Sean Neville and Jeremy Allaire, stated that the platform would focus on exploring the prospects of its native stablecoin, USDC, along with other global stablecoins. Elaborating on what the platform has envisioned for 2020, Allaire and Neville wrote,
“Our 2020 product roadmap sees this focus emerging first in the form of new global payment, custody, and wallet APIs for stablecoins.”
The APIs put forth by the platform would allow businesses as well as developers to utilize the benefits of stablecoins, without the hassle of “cost, complexity, and risk of implementing this infrastructure themselves,” the post read.
Additionally, the platform also sold the Circle Trade Over the counter [OTC] business to cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken. The founders further wrote,
“….we have every confidence and expectation that Circle Trade customers and partners will continue to find best-in-class OTC liquidity service and responsiveness through Kraken going forward.”
Recently, Neville had revealed that he would step down from his post as Co-CEO. Highlighting the same, he wrote,
“I (Sean) determined that these successful business changes make the timing appropriate to exit my co-CEO management position, though I will remain connected to the company as an independent director on the Circle Board of Directors. “
Neville isn’t the only one leaving his post, however, as other execs including Chief Financial Officer Naeem Ishaq and Chief Legal Officer Gus Coldebella are also stepping down from their posts.
While Circle has been selling off its various platforms to different exchanges, several community members have speculated that the platform’s SeedInvest would be next in line. Despite having bought a number of crypto-firms back in 2017 itself, Circle seems to be on a selling spree, contrary to its 2017 buying spree. CoinShares’ Meltem Demirors elaborated on the same in her tweets,
1/ fascinating to watch @circlepay shed parts of it business
first @Poloniex is sold off to a syndicate led by @justinsuntron
now the trading desk is sold to @krakenfx
wonder what will happen to @SeedInvest? https://t.co/jVtrU0FF3X
— Meltem Demirors (@Melt_Dem) December 17, 2019
OhNoCrypto
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Sahana Kiran, Khareem Sudlow