Issuer of Second-Biggest Stablecoin Secures $400 Million in Funding

Cryptocurrency finance firm Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), has announced a mammoth $400 million funding round.

Blackrock, the world's largest money manager overseeing $10 trillion worth of assets, mutual fund giant Fidelity and hedge fund Marshall Wace have agreed to participate in the massive fundraising.

Circle is expected to wrap up the funding round by the end of the second quarter.

In his statement, CEO Jeremy Allaire says that the popular stablecoin is "fueling a global economic transformation."

Blackrock has also agreed to explore capital market allocations for USDC on top of participating in the funding round.

The market cap of the USDC currently stands at $50.8 billion, which makes it the second-biggest centralized stablecoin after Tether (USDT). The value of the dollar-pegged stablecoin has more than doubled in a year. It is currently in fifth place by market capitalization, according to data provided by CoinMarketCap.

Last May, Circle raised $440 million from Marshall Wace, Fidelity, Breyer Capital and other backers.

 In February, Circle announced that its valuation had swelled to $9 billion after striking a merger deal with Concord, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Its previous agreement with Concord, which was originally announced in July and valued Circle at $4.5 billion, fell through. The merger agreement is expected to be closed by the end of the year, but the deal stipulates that the deadline could be extended to late January 2023.

Circle launched the USDC stablecoin in partnership via a consortium backed by the Coinbase exchange in September 2018. It has since positioned itself as a more regulatory-friendly Tether alternative.