Julien LeGoc

[USDC @USDC]

This is big.

In fact, USDC is the world’s largest regulated digital dollar, ever.

[USDC @USDC]

Hello world.

It’s a good morning for USDC.

[Circle @circle]

With a year-over-year growth rate of over 100%, USDC adoption is accelerating globally, and today reached $56 billion in circulation.

The future of money is here.

[David Marcus @davidmarcus]

How Libra Was Killed.

I never shared this publicly before, but since @pmarca opened the floodgates on @joerogan’s pod, it feels appropriate to shed more light on this.

As a reminder, Libra (then Diem) was an advanced, high-performance, payments-centric blockchain paired with a stablecoin that we built with my team at @Meta. It would’ve solved global payments at scale. Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators.

By spring of 2021 (yes they slow played us at every step), we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch.

We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen. I wasn’t in the room when this conversation happened, so take these words with a grain of salt, but effectively this was the moment Libra was killed.

Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over.

One essential point is worth making here. There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions. That was the hardest part of this story for me personally. Not that we had failed, but that America, this country I immigrated to and became a proud citizen of because of its rule of law and value system, behaved in such a way for political reasons. It was a very tough pill to swallow.

The bright side of the story, though, was the many learnings from this wild ride. By the end of the project, we had made so many concessions to get a thumbs-up that the whole design of the network became a Frankenstein of our initial ambitions.

We also learned the biggest lesson of all, which is that if you’re trying to build an open money grid for the world—eventually moving trillions of dollars a day, designed to be here 100 years from now—you have to build it on the most neutral, decentralized, unassailable network and asset, which, hands down, is Bitcoin.

And now this is what many of us who went through this scarring journey are building together at @Lightspark. And this time, we won’t stop until we get it done!

[Circle @circle]

🧵 Native $USDC is now live on @SuiNetwork!

Sui is a layer-1 blockchain designed for scalability, speed, and affordability and the first using the Move programming language to support native USDC!

Learn how developers are using USDC in the Sui ecosystem. 👇

https://t.co/vCLlmR2Kzd

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

BREAKING NEWS: @circle has announced that we are moving our Global HQ to New York City, building out a flagship space on one of the top floors of 1 World Trade Center, an historically important landmark in standing for American global economic leadership. Details below the video.

I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone with an event including leading financial industry firms, crypto industry leaders and policymakers. We are also sharing this announcement video that captures the moment and inspiration.

Why is this important for Crypto, Circle, New York, America and the US Dollar?

Since our founding, we have envisioned building a new internet financial system on the foundations of crypto – open networks, open source software, open protocols, decentralized and distributed infrastructure – and building on and expanding the capabilities of the largest and most important currencies in the world, starting with the US dollar.

11 years into our founding, that vision is coming alive in a tremendous and exciting way, with USDC now powering trillions of dollars of onchain transactions, with thousands of developers and applications building on this innovation, and with increasing legal clarity that digital dollars like USDC are new forms of legal electronic money that can be used widely around the world.

As this technology explodes into the mainstream, and as Circle becomes a more and more important company and infrastructure for this new internet financial system, it became clear that we needed to plant our flag, both literally and figuratively, in the heart of Wall Street, in the most important economic center of the world, and in the great country of the United States of America.

Many complain that the United States is not the right jurisdiction to build a company in our industry, and that the current government here remains hostile to this industry. I couldn’t disagree more. My view is that we are at a turning point, and that the US is about to become THE decisive leader in building and supporting this technology and financial revolution.

We are an American Technology champion, and we want to demonstrate that the highest quality, the best run, the safest and the most powerful technology for the new internet financial system calls not just the US, but New York City, it’s home.

Today, New York City is home to an enormous number of crypto firms that are leading and innovating in nearly every area of this industry. New York may have the most talent-density in crypto of any city in the world. It’s truly astounding, and we feel so privileged to join this thriving community of companies with a flagship headquarters in New York.

After having originally founded the company in Boston, like many technology-driven companies, we have scaled out largely as a remote-first operation. Today, we span 36 US states and 14 countries, with a presence in many of the world’s leading cities including New York, SF Bay Area, Boston, London, Dublin, Paris, Singapore, Berlin, São Paulo, Taipei and more. And we are growing all around the world. But through this, New York has become a crucial nexus of talent, connectivity and a core location for where we convene.

1 World Trade Center is an awe-inspiring building. Its history is known to nearly everyone; this iconic tower, the tallest in the Western hemisphere, stands for freedom, strength, and a projection of America’s central role in the global economic system. Freedom Tower stands above the great pillars of the global economic system – Wall St., the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Federal Reserve, and more.

Sitting on a top floor of the tower, Circle’s new flagship HQ is being built not as a traditional office, but rather as a powerful convening space, where we bring together all of our stakeholders to collaborate together, discover, and build the new internet financial system. It’s going to be an amazing and inspiring space that helps bring to life everything that we do at Circle.

Today, we are celebrating this new HQ, joined in person in New York by industry, political and key partners who have been central to Circle’s growth and success. Join us virtually in this next phase of our journey.

We are investing in New York. We are investing in America. We believe strongly that the infrastructure we are collectively building – this new internet financial system – will be the foundation for the next hundred years of global economic activity and coordination.

2024 has been a turning point year in crypto, a year when stablecoins started to truly breakout in scale, importance and usage. 2025 will be the year when this goes mainstream. As we open our new HQ to the world in early 2025, we will be thrilled to host and convene and see many of you there for this next phase of our collective journey in building a more open, inclusive, safer and efficient global economic system.

JA

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

Slowly, then suddenly and all at once, EURC becoming the largest Euro Stablecoin.

https://t.co/mBNPD0XONS

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

EURC on the move. Euro stables starting to come alive.

[Sandra Persing ✈️ 🏡 @SandraPersing]

36 hours! 40 projects w @circle ! No matter what kudos 👏 👏 👏 to all the devs and builders @ETHGlobal Brussels 🫡 💞

[Patrick Hansen @paddi_hansen]

With MiCA entering into application this year, expect a transformative year ahead for the EU crypto market.

Together with @ddisparte, we wrote a short article outlining what to expect and how MiCA will likely impact the crypto market structure 👇

• the EU market is projected to localize, institutionalize, professionalize and likely consolidate.

• Stablecoin offerings, both local and global, will either comply or ultimately vanish from the EU market in the short to mid term, as evidenced by recent announcements from exchanges.

• We expect increased growth and competition for Euro-denominated stablecoins.

• Foreign, unregulated exchanges will face significant restrictions, making it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to operate on a reverse solicitation basis.

• A substantial portion of MiCA's implementation work still lies ahead of us and only its practical success will matter in a few years.

• The longer the regulatory vacuum for crypto persists in the U.S. and UK as two key jurisdictions, the greater the global impact of MiCA standards is likely to be. Is MiCA the new GDPR with a global impact?

See the full blog post linked below for more!

[Dante Disparte @ddisparte]

It's a real honor to share that @circle has become the first global #Stablecoin issuer to be #MICA complaint for both hashtag $USDC and EURC. Years in the making, today's announcement marks a major milestone in how regulated digital currencies will become a permanent pillar in the European and global economy. https://t.co/CaEKjRPHE3

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

Another huge step forward for crypto. And another huge win for USDC going mainstream for merchants and end users. We are marching faster and faster towards the dream of the internet financial system.

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

With the first part of the MiCA crypto regulation set to take effect Sunday, "Europe has succeeded in doing what other jurisdictions, including the U.S., are still avoiding," writes @ddisparte of @Circle.

Opinion.

https://t.co/YIiPeWIBk6

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

1/4

Today @circle launched our new media campaign -- "Money is now open" -- speaking to the transformation that is in front of us with open money on open networks (USDC).

[Julien LeGoc @JulienLegoc]

Brand new campaign from @circle on the power of open money. Digital dollars that move across the internet to deliver speed, low costs and greater inclusion.

Money is now open. #OpenMoneyEra https://t.co/N7Oaqsq4yA

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

Join @circle and much of our leadership team as we converge on Paris -- we are running a mini-conf (Circle Forum Paris), a Soiree and all over Paris Blockchain Week. More info here: https://t.co/cIhESCj9UD

[Julien LeGoc @JulienLegoc]

.@Circle is headed to Paris for #ParisBlockchainWeek! Reach out if you'd like to meet with the team at our Circle booth at Carrousel du Louvre from April 9-11, 2024.

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

98% of Stablecoin transfers on Solana are using USDC.

[Circle @circle]

For the first time in history, we can activate the full economic potential of humanity thanks to digital dollars like $USDC. See how USDC might be the secret to financial inclusion.

[Dante Disparte @ddisparte]

Ours is a labor of love at @circle and I truly love what we do and why we do it. Because nothing worth doing is worth doing alone, we are proud to contribute to more inclusive financial access around the world with $USDC.