Circle’s Jeremy Allaire Predicts Major Growth for Bitcoin, Stablecoins in Next Decade

• Circle (USDC) boss Jeremy Allaire says he is more optimistic about crypto than ever.
• Circle is attempting to become a public company through a traditional IPO.
• Stablecoins command a combined market cap of $162 billion.

Circle (USDC) co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire believes that crypto adoption is still in the very early stages. To him, this is “insanely bullish”

Looking back on Bitcoin (BTC) and the industry’s growth, Allaire thinks the next decade will be the most transformative, especially for stablecoins.

Building Blocks

Over 11 years ago Allaire and Circle co-founder, Sean Neville, were looking at blockchain as the next “logical layer” of internet infrastructure.

The Internet lacked a trust layer. However, the advent of Bitcoin demonstrated that blockchain could unleash this latent potential within the Internet.

“Internet infrastructure had enabled frictionless, nearly free movement of data and seamless ability to connect and deploy software and hardware on a global network, and it was clearly struggling with its own success and weight.”

But with every year that passes, blockchain evolves and innovates with an “unrelenting march of open networks, open protocols, and open software”. Allaire says he’s seen the Internet transform society, and the economy, and believes crypto is “on the cusp” of also catapulting the world forward.

Stablecoin Adoption

Describing stablecoins as crypto’s “clearest killer app”, Allaire posits several reasons that could boost stablecoin growth significantly over the next 10 years. Considering that stablecoin payment volumes are nearing that of financial behemoths like Visa, Allaire also notes that these firms are:

“[…]actively using this technology and exploring how to expand their usage as the benefits of public chains and stablecoins become apparent to everyone,”

Stablecoins have the potential to be adopted by billions of users, especially as they continue to “[…]fulfill the promise realms of banking the unbanked, lowering remittance costs, and allowing seamless cross-border commerce”.

Noting that they are increasingly accepted and used as a legal form of digital money, Allaire believes stablecoins will account for a “larger and large” portion of the world’s $100 trillion “market for electronic money”.

The Next Decade

Allaire is still in awe of the industry’s achievements over the past decade or so:

“For those of us who have been building and working in this space since 2012 (and many from even earlier!), it’s totally and utterly extraordinary where we are at now.”

For the majority of the time, governments, banks, and institutions were extremely hostile. Negative sentiment was amplified by the constant media narrative of its association with darknet sites like the Silk Road. To Allaire, it seemed improbable that cryptocurrencies and blockchain became a mainstream sensation.

Banks, governments, the largest industries on Earth, and “tens of thousands of startups,” are now actively adopting blockchain and crypto. With excitement, Allaire suggests that this is the beginning of another transformative era.

Circle IPO

Since 2021, Circle has attempted to become a public company through a traditional initial public offering (IPO).

After a failed $9 billion merger deal with Concord Acquisition Corp in 2022, the firm’s IPO aspirations were stuck in regulatory limbo. Circle submitted a fresh IPO proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2024, intending to go public in the second half of 2024.

This has since hit another hurdle. Reportedly , the SEC has now requested that Circle disclose the risks associated with USDC if it becomes classified as a security. Furthermore, the SEC seems curious to explore the implications of Circle being regarded as an investment company.

According to the SEC, either development could impact Circle’s business model. This is because it would include stringent regulatory reporting, operational restrictions, and increased costs.

In 2021, SEC Chair Gary Gensler suggested that stablecoins backed by securities could be securities themselves. Though, somewhat contrary to its current aspirations, Circle argued in a court filing from 2023, that stablecoins such as USDC are not securities.