Circle brings business accounts to help businesses integrate crypto payments into their operations

Circle, the operator of the USD Coin (USDC), has announced a new account service geared at assisting businesses with cryptocurrency transactions. It seems that the company is aiming to pave the way for more mainstream acceptance of digital assets.

The company stated on Wednesday that the new business-focused Circle Account allows enterprise clients to deposit, withdraw, receive, and store crypto, with all transfers, handled in the USDC stablecoin. 

1/ Get to know the Circle Account, with new features making it even easier to run your business on #USDC. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/g0hhrE3LeY

— Circle (@circle) February 23, 2022

Helping businesses to integrate crypto payments

Businesses may now effectively integrate crypto payments into their operations and use digital assets as collateral, thanks to Circle’s new account capabilities. Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Stellar, Tron, Hedera, Avalanche, and Flow account holders can send and receive USDC across these eight blockchains.

Accredited investors can use Circle Accounts to engage in the company’s stablecoin lending scheme. The scheme, known as Circle Yield, offers investors annual returns ranging from 4% to 6%. Circle, which is known for being cooperative with regulators, claims that its Yield product is “overcollateralized” with Bitcoin (BTC), meaning that its BTC holdings are greater than what is required to cover any damages in the event of default.

Circle’s continuous and steady growth

USDC is one of the fastest-growing and the second-largest stablecoin by market cap. The number of active users has climbed by 213% since the debut of Circle Accounts in 2020, according to the company. 

“Increased payment use cases, cross-border transactions, and the adoption of assets like USDC as a “flight to safety,” especially in countries where the native currency is suffering from a valuation loss, are some of the reasons for USDC growth,” a company’s official said.

Circle’s valuation surged to $9 billion earlier in February after it updated a planned merger agreement with Concord Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company created in 2020, as TheCoinRise reported. The merger between Circle and Concord is planned to be completed by December 8, 2022.

CoinMarketCap shows that USDC has a market cap of $52.7 billion, whereas Tether has a market cap of $79.4 billion.