Circle Stock Jumps 5%. The Stablecoin Firm Is Applying for US Trust Bank License After Bumper IPO

Stablecoin firm Circle is applying to create a national trust bank in the U.S., a major move after its blockbuster IPO valued the company at nearly $18 billion earlier this month.

If the charter is granted by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, it would enable Circle to act as a custodian for its own reserves and hold crypto assets on behalf of institutional clients. Unlike traditional banks, the license would not allow Circle to take cash deposits or make loans.

"Circle has long sought to seek the highest standards of trust, transparency, governance, compliance," CEO Jeremy Allaire told Reuters in an interview. "Becoming a publicly traded company is a significant part of that, becoming a national trust company is again a continuation of that."

Circle's national trust bank entity would be called First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A.

Crypto platform Anchorage Digital is currently the only digital asset company with a national trust bank charter.

Circle issues the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say that they could be used to send payments instantly.

Stablecoins are backed by assets such as U.S. dollars and short-term Treasury bills in order to maintain their peg to the dollar. Currently, Circle's reserves -- short-dated U.S. Treasury bills, overnight U.S. Treasury repurchase agreements and cash -- are held in custody at BNY and managed by BlackRock.

The new entity would manage Circle’s USDC reserves, although some reserves will continue to be held at major banks, Allaire said.

The license would also allow Circle to provide custody services for digital assets on behalf of institutional customers. However, Allaire said it will focus on providing custody for assets like stocks and bonds that are represented via a token on a blockchain network, over traditional cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.