USDC’s Circle will go public via New York Stock Exchange

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Circle, one of the two parent companies behind the USDC stablecoin will become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. Circle will be going public by merging with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition Corp. ($CND); once the merger is complete, Circle will trade under the ticker symbol $CRCL and is expected to be valued at $4.5 billion.

Circle Co-founder and CEO Jeremey Allaire broke the news today via Twitter when he announced that Circle had signed a definitive agreement with Concord Acquisition. Subsequently, Allaire went on to talk about Circle’s mission as well as its growth over the last 12 months.

1/7 Today, we announced that we have signed definitive agreements for a transaction that will result in Circle becoming a publicly listed company on the NYSE trading under the ticker CRCL. https://t.co/WIK9CUKNIR

— Jeremy Allaire – jda.eth / jdallaire.sol (@jerallaire) July 8, 2021

USDC’s growth… and potential obstacle

The USDC stablecoin is the second-largest stablecoin by market cap–Tether’s USDT is the largest. According to Allaire, USDC grew 55x in the past 12 months and there are now over $25 billion USDC in circulation.

The USDC was created by Centre, a company founded by Circle and Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN); Centre prides itself on creating the most transparent stablecoin in the market. Unlike other stablecoins, Centre publishes monthly reports created by the accounting firm Grant Thorton LLP–however, Centre and Grant Thorton LLP have been slow to publish the last few attestation reports.

Grant Thorton LLP usually releases the monthly report within two weeks from the end of the month. However, beginning in October 2020, the report began to roll in late. The October attestation letter came in 23 days after month-end, in November the reporting schedule returned to normal, but the December report was published 42 days after month-end. The January report was published 33 days after month-end, the February report 58 days after month-end, the March report took 24 days, and the April report took 40 days–as of press time, the May and June reports have not been published yet.

Similar to  Tether, more and more individuals are starting to question the actual amount of reserves backing the USDC and are beginning to wonder if it is really backed 1:1 with the US dollar like it claims to be.

What to watch

Circle is expected to complete the deal with Concord Acquisition Corp. and begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange in Q4 2021. Between now and then, you will want to keep an eye on the developing story about Grant Thorton LLPs delay in publishing the monthly attestation reports as well as the actual amount of reserves that may or may not be backing the USDC stablecoin.