Circle Becomes 'Bitcoin Unicorn' With Bitmain-Backed Mega-Round

contentjunkie (73)in #bitcoin • 6 years ago

From Coindesk

The 'bitcoin unicorn' club now has another member.
Announced Tuesday, Circle has closed a $110 million Series E fundraising, a figure that effectively values the startup at over $3 billion, according to figures from the company. Led by China-based mining outfit Bitmain, the round includes support from Accel, Blockchain Capital, Breyer, Digital Currency Group, General Catalyst, IDG, Pantera and Tusk Ventures.

With the funding, the company is also revealing an ambitious plan to bolster its products and services by launching a "US dollar coin," or a blockchain native asset that would be both regulated and backed by real government currency, through its affiliate CENTRE project.

In this way, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire framed the round as one that helps it position itself as a true conglomerate of cryptocurrency services, as opposed to just an exchange or payment startup, both characterizations having been given to the company in the past.

Allaire told CoinDesk:

"A core part of vision is open-protocols that would enable the free movement of value. A real critical piece is there has to be open, interoperable standards for our how fiat money can move over blockchains. That's where fiat stablecoins and payment protocols come into play."

Seems like there is more and more good news these days and big investments in bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It won't be long before all this sentiment starts to drive the price up again. FOMO can be real driver as we've seen and the pump looks to be priming right now.