The CEO of fintech firm Circle claims that every world currency will one day have their own digital version. Jeremy Allaire spoke to CNBC in an interview today about the inevitability of a crypto dollar, yen, and euro in the future.
Allaire: “All Fiat Currency Will be Crypto”
Jeremy Allaire spoke in no uncertain terms about the likelihood of digital currency versions of traditional currencies to CNBC. The Circle CEO stated:
“Our view is that all fiat currency will be crypto… It seems inevitable at this point.”
Allaire co-founded Circle in 2013 with partner Sean Neville. Since then, the fintech start-up has been right up there with the firms most supportive of the financial innovation that is cryptocurrency. They currently offer Circle Pay – an application that allows the transfer of funds from one user to another that is facilitated using blockchain – Bitcoin’s underlying technology.
The company have also created Circle Invest – an application that will allow their users to buy and sell the most established cryptocurrencies. In addition to this offering tailored to retail investors, the startup also provides support to institutional investors. Circle Trade allows over-the-counter (OTC) trades in excess of $250,000.
Circle enjoy the support of some rather impressive names. Both U.S. investment banking giant Goldman Sachs and the Chinese internet powerhouse Baidu back the startup. The company that is currently worth in excess of $3 billion also recently acquired the digital currency trading platform Poloniex.
During Monday’s interview with CNBC Allaire commented on Circle’s commitment to developing fiat-pegged ‘stablecoins.’ The CEO stated:
“Our focus with fiat stablecoins is we really think of it as a core building block for a crypto native global digital economy… Our interest is in how do we take all of the tasks involved in the financial industry and move those onto a crypto native infrastructure.”
Circle are currently working on a U.S. dollar-backed digital coin. It will be known as Circle USDC or USD Coin. It’s being built within a platform called CENTRE. CENTRE is a subsidiary of Circle that raised $20 million in funding late last year.
In addition to the U.S. dollar digital currency, Allaire commented that Circle were toying with the idea of creating both euro and a British pound-backed digital currencies.
As part of their efforts to develop platforms that expand the accessibility of cryptocurrencies, Circle have recently been in talks with U.S. regulators to obtain a banking license for their operations.
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