Finance company Circle claims its over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trading desk swapped a notional volume of $24 billion last year. The Boston-based company’s Circle Trade desk reportedly executed more than 10,000 cryptocurrency settlements between 600 unique counterparties in 2018.
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Despite the Crypto Bear Market in 2018, Circle Sees Significant Growth
Last year the digital asset company Circle made a lot of moves behind the scenes within the cryptocurrency economy. In a blog post written on Jan. 3, Circle explained how it expanded significantly over the last 12 months and now services over 8 million customers residing in 195 different countries. In 2018, Circle claims to have processed more than 200 million digital asset transactions, adding up to over $75 billion in value. The Boston-based firm says customers stemmed from all over the world, with 30 percent of volume coming from the U.S. This is followed by the EU and U.K. (24%), Asia (24%), and the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America (21%).
Additionally, Circle discussed acquiring the cryptocurrency trading platform Poloniex and emphasized that the exchange’s services have improved a great deal over the last 12 months. “Through expansion in support operations and engineering, we helped customers by reducing nearly 200,000 open tickets at the start of 2018 to fewer than 1,000 by year-end,” Circle noted. Circle also remarked that Poloniex now has enhanced risk and compliance operations which allow the company to onboard customers within minutes of enrollment. The parent company detailed that Poloniex would see more UX improvements this year and the “continued launch of new markets.”
More Than 10,000 OTC Swaps Worth Over $24 Billion Last Year
Circle’s retail investment services saw growth last year as well, explained the company’s founders Sean Neville and Jeremy Allaire. More than 30 percent of customers buy unique collections of digital assets regularly the founders noted. Over 30 percent of all purchases on Circle Invest are recurring and repeat purchases like these have doubled since last September. With the company’s OTC operations, even though 2018’s crypto prices were extremely bearish, Circle’s OTC desk still expanded. Circle Trade saw $24 billion in notional OTC cryptocurrency volume, with its 24/7 coverage in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. By utilizing 36 different digital currencies, Circle Trade facilitated 10,000 OTC swaps between 600 different entities. The corporation detailed that Circle’s clients and partners include asset managers, other OTC desks, family offices, high net worth individuals, endowments, token projects, and exchanges.
The company’s flagship stablecoin offering, USDC, saw “significant penetration” in 2018 and is now supported by 40 exchange platforms. The Circle-backed stablecoin is also being used by over 80 companies like wallets and other types of applications. Despite all the layoffs throughout the crypto economy, Circle’s institutional sales team grew 3x in size. Circle’s 2018 report shows that the ecosystem is still alive and well, but investment providers have somewhat shifted towards catering to institutional clientele. There’s been a huge influx of OTC buyers and institutional customers throughout 2018. Many other large digital currency-based firms like Coinbase, Blockchain and Etoro have announced OTC desks in order to capture these types of customers.
What do you think about Circle processing over $24 billion in cryptocurrency-based OTC volume last year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Images via Shutterstock, and Circle.
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Cryptocurrency markets are down over 69 percent since December 16, 2017, and the past few months of 2018 has been awfully bearish. However, during this period of time, lots of companies like Coinbase, Bitgo, Circle, and others have been opening their doors to institutional investors. This week according to Circle’s co-founder Jeremy Allaire the firm had seen a notable increase in from institutional investors. 
Just recently we were sent an invitation code to give the new Circle Invest app a test, so we decided to give our readers a sneak peek before the official release. The company Circle is a well-known firm in the bitcoin space founded in 2013 by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville. A lot of venture capital has been injected into Circle to the tune of $136 million USD from investors like IDG Capital Partners, and Goldman Sachs. When the company first started it sold BTC to customers through an iOS and Android app but stopped the service back in 2016. Following this pivot the firm operated by offering large over-the-counter sales to investors internationally.
Circle Internet Financial Ltd., the Boston-headquartered fintech startup that acquired Poloniex last month, will reportedly expand the cryptocurrency exchange’s staff with a hundred new employees. The move is meant to improve the operations, customer support and technology for Poloniex clients around the world. Specifically, Circle is said to hire between 25 and 35 extra people to grow its operations in Asia, expanding a local workforce of just ten in Hong Kong and mainland China, and creating new offices for South Korea and Japan.
While Poloniex is expanding to new locations Asia, Circle is expanding the reach of its own services in the US market. The company announced last week that Circle Invest, its native cryptocurrency trading mobile app, has been made available (in early access availability) to residents of forty-six US states (all except for NY, MN, HI, and WY). The app supports bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ethereum (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC) and litecoin (LTC).