Payment app Circle has announced today that it has acquired U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Poloniex as the company continues to realise its new vision for global finance.
For weeks, rumours have been going around that Goldman Sachs-backed Circle had been discussing the purchase of Poloniex, and today those rumours were finally put to rest. The Boston-based company said that the two businesses ‘look forward to giving dedicated focus to scalability, reliability, and robustness.’
While terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed, a report from Fortune suggests that Circle bought Poloniex for around $400 million, which launched in 2014, according to a source familiar with the transaction.
Founded in 2013, Circle is an app that uses peer-to-peer payment blockchain technology allowing people to make instant money transfers. The company also acted as a bitcoin wallet for users to buy and sell bitcoin; however, it ceased that service in December 2016. In 2015, it became the first company to receive a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services. Speaking of the deal, Circle founders, Sean Neville and Jeremy Allaire, said:
“We look forward to scaling Poloniex up and out through market expansion and localisation, increasing token listings where possible and appropriate, and exploring the fiat USD, EUR, and GBP connectivity that Circle already brings to its compliant Pay, Trade, and Invest products.”
Poloniex is already available in more than 100 countries and has grown to become one of the leading token marketplaces. It was also the first cryptocurrency exchanges to reach $1 billion in daily volume, according to the founders, and has maintained its innovative run by hosting a variety of carefully selected tokens, they say.
Looking to the future, Neville and Allaire, said that they aim to grow the Poloniex platform beyond what it currently is as an exchange for only cryptocurrency assets.
“We envision a robust multi-sided distributed marketplace that can host tokens which represent everything of value: physical goods, fundraising and equity, real estate, creative productions such as works of art, music and literature, service leases and time-based rentals, credit, futures, and more,” they said.
In light of the news, Poloniex said that they will be joining Circle to build on their foundations to scale its platform further, grow their global reach, and accelerate its token ecosystem. It also took the time to reassure its community by saying that they ‘remain committed to preserving the features and functionality that first drew interest to our platform,’ adding:
“Your funds will remain safe and access to account functionality uninterrupted throughout.”