Circle Internet Finance says it’s getting close to applying to become a digital bank in the U.S., even as regulators make it harder for crypto companies like Circle to gain banking licenses.
As Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (April 13), Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire says the company has held continual discussions with regulators since August 2021, when it first announced plans to become a bank.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Allaire declined to reveal when the company would submit the application, saying only that it would happen “hopefully in the near future.”
See also: USDC Creator Circle Seeks Full-Reserve National Commercial Bank Status
The news comes one day after Circle announced it had raised $400 million from BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Management and Research LLC, and other investors. The startup has revealed plans to go public in a $9 special purpose acquisition deal.
USDC, the second most popular cryptocurrency, is a digital stablecoin linked to the U.S. dollar. In announcing its plans for a banking license last year, Circle said that “a new global economic system could be built on an internet-native foundation — open, global and interoperable public internet infrastructure for the storage and transmission of value, and ultimately for the intermediation of capital more broadly.”
Read more: Circle Raises $400M in Investment Capital
The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees bank charters, has held discussions with Circle management on the company’s banking ambitions, on topics that include interoperability between blockchains and how to assess the operational risks of a specific blockchain, Allaire told Bloomberg.
The report noted the risk of connecting different blockchains, with crypto-related hacks taking in more than $1 billion in a little more than a year.
Other crypto banks to receive federal charters in the U.S. include Anchorage Digital, Protego Trust Bank NA, and Paxos Trust Company.
Circle’s attempt comes at a time when watchdogs in the U.S. have begun arguing for more regulation for stablecoins, saying they should be issued by banks, a position that could essentially decide Circle’s longevity.
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