Circle, the company that issues the USDC and EURC stablecoins
What Circle means for a USDC and EURC holder
Companies and financial services deal with Circle directly, and the Circle Mint service is open only to organizations1. A private person usually buys and sells USDC on an exchange or in a wallet app, so they almost never deal with Circle itself. The exception is the European Economic Area (EEA), where any holder is entitled to redeem the token with Circle after an identity check ⚖️, with details in the USDC profile.
Your rights as a holder, including the right to redeem, are set out in the terms of the group company that issued the token for your region. The European terms are separate from the US ones.
Checking the issuer yourself takes two steps:
- Open the latest monthly report on Circle's transparency page and compare the date and the amount of reserves with the number of tokens in circulation. where to check: circle.com/transparency
- Check the licence of the company you deal with in the regulator's register, for example in the register of the French regulator AMF for the EEA. where to check: amf-france.org, white lists section
- parent company, Delaware, founders Circle Internet Group, «Prospectus (Form 424B4)» sec.gov ↩
- One World Trade Center, New York Circle Internet Group, «Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026» sec.gov ↩
- founded in 2013 Circle Internet Group, «Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025» sec.gov ↩
- Allaire, co-founder, CEO and chairman Circle, «About Circle» circle.com; Tarbert, president Circle, «Heath Tarbert» circle.com ↩
- IPO, NYSE, CRCL, trading since 05.06.2025 Circle, «Circle Announces Pricing of Upsized Initial Public Offering» circle.com ↩
- products Circle, «About Circle» circle.com ↩
- issuance through regulated subsidiaries Circle, «USDC» circle.com; French company for the EEA Circle Internet Group, «Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025» sec.gov ↩
- monthly reports, Big Four, Deloitte since fiscal year 2022 Circle, «Transparency» circle.com ↩
What Circle does
Circle receives dollars or euros, issues USDC or EURC tokens for the same amount and destroys ("burns") them when customers return the tokens for redemption. How the tokens themselves work is covered in the USDC and EURC profiles.
How the Circle group is organized
The listed shares belong to the parent company, Circle Internet Group, Inc., of the state of Delaware. Licences and obligations to holders sit with its subsidiaries, and each has its own regulator ⚖️.
Circle's regulation and licences
Circle in the European Union under MiCA rules
Since 1 July 2024, USDC and EURC in the European Union have been issued by Circle's French company under the EU-wide rules for crypto (MiCA) ⚖️2. It is supervised by the French financial regulators (ACPR and AMF)3.
In April 2026 the same company received authorization from the AMF to hold customers' crypto and transfer it ⚖️4. Anyone can check such an entry: the AMF register is public and shows the number, the date and the list of authorized services.
Circle in the US under the NYDFS, the OCC and the GENIUS Act
In New York, Circle received the BitLicense for crypto business from the state financial regulator (NYDFS) in 2015, the first company to do so, according to Circle5.
In July 2026 the US federal bank regulator (OCC) gave final approval to Circle's national trust bank ⚖️5. A trust bank holds other people's property and manages it on the owner's instructions. At first Circle National Trust holds the digital assets of Circle itself and its companies, and the company describes managing the USDC reserve as a future task for the bank5. On 31 July 2026 the NYDFS granted the trust company Circle New York Trust a limited-purpose state trust charter6.
The US stablecoin law, the GENIUS Act, was signed on 18 July 2025 ⚖️7. It takes effect on 18 January 2027 ⚖️8.
As of 30.10.2026, according to Circle, it also holds licences in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Canada and the UAE1. The list changes.
How Circle's reserves and accounts are checked
Circle has two checks, and they answer different questions: a monthly reserve attestation and an annual audit of the accounts. Once a month a Big Four firm confirms that, on the report date, the reserves cover all issued tokens, much like counting the cash register at the end of the day. The auditor Deloitte & Touche LLP checks the financial statements of the whole company for the year9. How an attestation differs from an audit is explained in the article what are reserves.
According to Circle, as of 30.10.2026 most of the USDC reserve is invested in a money market fund, that is, a fund that holds money in short-term debt securities. This is the Circle Reserve Fund, managed by BlackRock and held at the bank BNY (formerly BNY Mellon)10. Circle discloses the composition of the reserve once a week, and BlackRock publishes data on the fund itself daily9.
How Circle came through the collapse of SVB bank in March 2023
On 10 March 2023 US regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank, which held 3.3 billion dollars of the USDC reserve, roughly 8% of the total reserve. On 12 March the US Treasury and the banking regulators announced that the bank's depositors would be paid in full, and Circle said the whole amount would be available when banks opened the next day11. During those days the price of USDC dipped below one dollar for a while; how that happened and why is covered in the USDC profile and the article what is a depeg.
The lesson for a holder is simple: the reserve money sits in banks and funds, so a bank's risk becomes the token's risk. Look in the reports for where exactly the reserve is held and what share of it is cash in accounts.
Key events in Circle's history
- 2013. Allaire and Neville found the company312.
- September 2018. USDC launches, at first through the Centre consortium together with the Coinbase exchange13.
- 30 June 2022. The euro stablecoin comes out, then under the ticker EUROC, later EURC14.
- August 2023. The Centre consortium is closed, control of USDC passes entirely to Circle, and Coinbase receives a stake in Circle15.
- 5 June 2025. Circle lists on the NYSE16.
- September 2026. Circle launches the main network of the Arc blockchain, where fees are paid in USDC17.
Where to check the latest on Circle
The company's reports and announcements of leadership changes are published in the SEC EDGAR database and in the investor section.
Reserve reports and the reserve composition are on the transparency page.
Circle lists its licences by country on its company page.
More detail on Circle's group companies, licences and products
Rights and licences are divided among five subsidiaries ⚖️:
- Circle Internet Financial, LLC operates in the US with money transmitter licences, including from the NYDFS10.
- Circle International Bermuda Limited holds a digital asset business licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA)10.
- Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, based in France, issues USDC and EURC for the EEA3.
- First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., operating as Circle National Trust, is the group's national trust bank in the US5.
- Circle Internet Trust Company LLC, operating as Circle New York Trust, is a New York State trust company6.
The French company issues tokens under an electronic money institution licence, meaning a licence for a company that issues digital money and exchanges it for regular money one to one2. The AMF authorization of 23 April 2026 has the number N2026-0054.
The national trust bank came about in two steps. Circle applied on 30 June 2025, the OCC granted conditional approval in December 2025 and final approval in July 2026. Later the bank may take on a limited number of institutions, mainly banks5. The OCC's rules under the GENIUS Act for companies it supervises were approved on 21 October 20268.
Besides stablecoins, Circle has USYC, a money market fund token, the CCTP protocol for moving USDC between blockchains, the Circle Payments Network and its own blockchain, Arc1. The USDC reserve fund trades under the ticker USDXX10. Circle's quarterly and annual reports, with a section on risks, are available on SEC EDGAR.
