Circle to Go Public on NYSE by SPAC Deal

3 min readJul 16, 2021

Event:

USDC operator Circle announced to debut on the NYSE via combination with Concord Acquisition [CND:US], a public traded special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC), with a deal value of USD4.5bn. Besides, the company plans to complete the transaction in 4Q21.

Circle Business Segments | Image from Circle

Impact:

Circle’s backdoor listing is anticipated to provide greater transparency about the business around USDC and expand the development of the Defi sector by introducing more institutional investors.

Earlier in January 2020, the US OCC allowed national banks and federal savings authorities to use stablecoins to conduct payment activities and other bank permissible functions. However, financial institutions still concern about system and regulatory risks, particularly lack of reserve transparency. After going public, Circle will comply with stricter regulations, reveal more business details, and make its USDC reserves more transparent, which will dispel concerns and attract more financial institutions to adopt USDC.

The listing is also expected to boost Defi applications. At present, USDC is the fast-growing, regulated, and fully dollar-pegged stablecoin, becoming the second-largest USD stablecoin behind USDT. Based on the data from The Block, the total USDC supply skyrocketed 6838.6% YoY to USD26.52bn as of July 12 (Figure 1). As of the same day, the total USDC supply accounted for 23.5% of the overall USD-based stablecoin supply, a net addition of 14.44 ppts from the previous year (Figure 2).

According to the data from Glassnode, the number of USDC staked in smart contracts reached 47.7% of the total USDC supply, while that of USDT hit 20.2% only (Figure 3). The figure indicates Defi power users choose USDC as the preferred stablecoin. Meanwhile, US institutional investors are eager to venture into the Defi sector. Citing the report from Xangle, among 379 US accredited investors, 90.0% and 72.2% of them are likely and very likely to invest in Defi in 2021, respectively (Figure 4). With the help of Circle’s Defi API business, more and more institutional investors will be able to swarm into the Defi field and access Defi protocols.