In the past few months, Goldman-backed crypto startup ‘Circle’ is seen pushing-up-the-ante and places an aggressive focus on expanding its products and services. In its latest , the company had a slew of announcements where it disclosed its partnership with China’s biggest bitcoin mining company ‘Bitmain’. Moreover, the company has also announced the release of its USD Coin, a digital cryptocurrency pegged with the U.S Dollar that would be used on the Poloniex exchange, which circle acquired a few months back in a whopping $400 million deal, as was by Coinspeaker.
Circle and Bitmain Enter a Strategic Partnership
On Tuesday, May 15th, Circle announced a strategic partnership with Bitmain where the latter is said to have invested $110 million in for the development of the CENTRE platform and the USDC project. The latest Series E fundraising round was led by Bitmain and also included support from other companies like IDG Capital, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Digital Currency Group, and Pantera along with two new investing participants Tusk Ventures and Blockchain Capital.
Circle announced this new partnership on its Twitter:
As well as their key support for CENTRE and USDC, is also leading a $110M series E strategic investment in Circle. We’re over the moon to have one of the most important and forward-thinking companies join our investor’s list. Welcome,
— Circle (@circlepay)
In a statement, the company said:
“Bitmain is one of the most important and forward-thinking companies in crypto, and has become a critical infrastructure provider for the entire crypto economy. Bitmain Co-founder and CEO Jihan Wu is well known for espousing a vision similar to ours regarding the creation and adoption of a new global economy powered by cryptographic assets, distributed contracts, and open source blockchain technology. We are excited to be working directly with Bitmain on realizing our shared vision.”
Circle also said that the partnership with Bitmain will help to push forward CENTRE’s efforts towards having a stablecoin backed by multiple fiat currencies, and will thus provide financial interoperability that will benefit business ventures, consumers, institutions and marketplaces across the globe.
Circle further noted that Bitmain will help CENTRE introduce multiple fiat stablecoins in a variety of geo-currency zones.
Circle Announces the Launch of Fiat-backed USD Coin
After Circle acquired popular cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex earlier this year, the company has been seen making some developmental changes with respect to the services of the platform. Circle has now introduced a new stablecoin called USD Coin, which value at any given time will be fixed and equal to one U.S Dollar.
This way users would be able to freeze their money without worrying about changes in the valuations of the U.S Dollar due to global economic fluctuations. Additionally, the stablecoin will facilitate easy crypto-to-crypto trading rather than opting for fiat-to-crypto conversions and paying high commission fees.
Earlier, Poloniex was using the USDT token by Tether, however, after a lot of questions being raised about the suspicious operations of Tether in the recent past, Circle decided to have its own stablecoin. Circle says that their USD Coin (USDC) has more advantages over other stablecoins because the company itself complies with national banking standards and, secondly, that it is an ERC20 token based on the widely used Ethereum blockchain network.
“Existing fiat-backed approaches have lacked financial and operational transparency, have operated in unregulated jurisdictions with unknown banking and audit partners, and have been built as closed-loop ecosystems and closed proprietary technologies,” the company said in a statement. “Circle USDC addresses these problems by providing detailed financial and operational transparency, operating within the regulated framework of US money transmission laws, and reinforced by established banking partners and auditors. It is built on an open source framework with an open membership scheme that eligible Financial Institutions (FI) can participate in (CENTRE). USDC will be ERC-20 tokens minted, issued, and redeemed based on network rules defined by CENTRE,” they further added.
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Essentia, the decentralized protocol framework, has just announced details of its public token sale following the completion of their successful pre-sale. Essentia has implemented KYC/AML verification ahead of the public sale so participants wishing to contribute to the token generation event must follow the verification procedure Essentia has outlined in detail in its project blog.
During the process of verification, interested parties will have the opportunity to experience the Essentia framework in action by creating their own dashboard through a series of quick steps. Here, documents can be uploaded in a secure environment and applicants can specify such details as the ETH wallet they wish to contribute from.
Anyone wishing to contribute more than 10 ETH will be required to submit additional details, and to verify that they are not the US or Chinese resident. Having completed verification for the Essentia public sale, applicants may return to their dashboard at any time to check on the status of their application. Due to high demand, Essentia cannot guarantee that successful applicants will be able to receive the full allocation of tokens they have requested.
Essentia co-founder Matteo Giancarlo Zago has stated: “The public sale marks the beginning of the next exciting phase for Essentia. Our community has been incredibly patient over the last few months, while the team has worked away behind the scenes to finalize everything in readiness for this moment. We look forward to welcoming applicants to our public sale, and to have them accompany us on the our journey building the infrastructure of the next web.”
Having recently signed an agreement with the Finnish government to develop a blockchain solution for the MTK ministry, one of Essentia’s first tasks following the public sale will be to recommence development on this initiative. In addition, the team will ramp up work on its enterprise solutions and fine-tuning the Essentia protocol, which they expect to grow into a thriving ecosystem of integrated dApps and other third party services.
Essentia successfully hit the hard cap during their pre-sale at the beginning of May, raising over $20m by reaching the maximum allocation of ESS tokens. As a consequence, no more pre-sale applications can be accepted. The Essentia public sale will mark the final stage of the process, which aims to give the Essentia community a chance to get involved, with 595 million ESS tokens allocated for the general sale to be distributed to all participants.
To be a part of their growing community join their Telegram channel .
Contact Email Address
matteo@essentia.one
Supporting Link
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The cryptocurrency based firm Circle announced it has raised $110Mn USD in a Series E fundraising round led by the Chinese firm Bitmain Technologies. Circle now joins Coinbase as one of the most well-funded cryptocurrency companies in the U.S., and the Boston-based firm has announced plans to issue a dollar-backed cryptocurrency called USD-C.
Also read:
Circle Raises $110Mn — Plans to Launch Stablecoin
Circle has big plans ahead for its latest mobile project called ‘Centre’ while also revealing its plans to create a stable coin much like the currency Tether (USDT). Furthermore, the firm has raised $110Mn in a Series E funding round that included investors such as Bitmain Technologies, Blockchain Capital, Pantera, Digital Currency Group and other venture firms. In addition to the injection of capital, Circle says it is planning to launch a new cryptocurrency that is backed by the price and reserves of USD.
The company’s new token will be called ‘USD-C’ and based off of the Ethereum network. According to the Circle, the firm’s subsidiary ‘Centre’ project will manage the USD-C protocol. Circle feels a cryptocurrency that is tied to a fiat currency can add more value to the blockchain ecosystem.
“It is difficult to use something like bitcoin if the volatility is so high,” Circle’s founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire explains. “Something like this makes it more possible.”
A Partnership With Bitmain
Circle also detailed that Bitmain will also be helping with the Centre project and the USD-C launch. “Bitmain will help Centre introduce multiple fiat stablecoins in a variety of geo-currency zones,” the company explains. Moreover, the company takes a jab at other ‘stablecoins’ utilized in the markets right now that lack transparency as the firm :
Existing fiat-backed approaches have lacked financial and operational transparency, have operated in unregulated jurisdictions with unknown banking and audit partners, and have been built as closed-loop ecosystems and closed proprietary technologies.
Circle says despite celebrating their fifth anniversary this fall they feel like they are just getting started. In addition to Centre and the new USD-C token that will launch this summer, Circle says it also has plans for Circle Invest, Circle Trade, Circle Pay, and the newly acquired Poloniex exchange.
“We see the future of the global economy as open, shared, inclusive, distributed, and powerful — not only for a few chosen gatekeepers, but for all who will connect,” Circle adds.
What do you think about Circle raising $110Mn in a funding round led by Bitmain? What do you think about this new USD-C idea they have? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Bitmain, and Circle.
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