Circle CEO Believes Crypto Is Going to Be More Disruptive Than the Web

Founder of Goldman Sachs-backed Circle, Jeremy Allaire, said in an interview that cryptocurrencies will have a bigger impact than the internet.

Allaire and his colleagues hosted a Reddit AMA and shared their opinions on a variety of crypto-related topics, including Circle’s view on the outlook of cryptocurrencies. Several other Circle employees also participated, offering their respective expertise.

A Very Bullish Outlook On Crypto

One user asked what plans Circle has for promoting their stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) as a means of payment between retailers.

Allaire replied:

Specifically, in terms of retailer acceptance, we think that USDC will be very attractive…we also expect to see merchant acquirers and payment processors add support for USDC and other fiat tokens that Centre supports.

The CEO revealed his belief that crypto will be bigger than the web when asked about his motivation to enter the crypto space:

In terms of my draw into crypto, it stems from a lifelong passion for the power of using the open internet to transform how the world works…I was excited about how a decentralized network could dis-intermediate governments and media companies and create a radically more open and connected global society. In my view, crypto is a much more significant and disruptive innovation than the Web, and its impact on society, politics, economics, governance will be far far greater for humanity over time.

After some hesitancy about the crypto market a few years ago, Circle this time is “committed more than ever”:

We are more committed than ever to this. We’ve rebuilt our payments infrastructure on top of crypto (USDC), and have made major investments and improvements to our core wallets infrastructure (in Poloniex), and you can expect to see continued and significant focus on consumer and retail offerings going into 2019. We will be expanding what we deliver for retail customers well beyond where we are today, all on a fully crypto-native architecture.

Plans for USDC

Last year, Circle released their very own stablecoin, the USDC, which joins a growing list of stablecoins.

When asked about how difficult it would be to issue stablecoins pegged to a fiat currency, as USDC demand has grown recently, an official said:

Indeed, demand for USDC has grown steadily, particularly in the last 4 weeks. As you know, a USDC token is only minted after a corresponding US Dollar is deposited by the interested customer on a reserve bank account. We’ve built systems that bridge fiat-to-crypto operations for years at this point and have experience scaling those.

However, officials were coy on what coins would be listed in the future, simply saying “ we can’t share the specifics of what we will or will not list.”

The Winklevoss twins, co-founders of the Gemini Exchange, also conducted an AMA recently, holding similarly bullish sentiment. Circle facilitated over $24 billion in OTC trading in 2018.