Circle is looking to shift its camp from Ireland to the US. The USDC stablecoin issuer has already filed papers and set the wheels in motion. The exact reason behind the company's decision, however, has not yet been revealed.
That being said, it is worth recalling that Circle filed for its public listing in the U.S. in January this year. The IPO is expected to take place after the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] wraps up its review process. The number of shares that will be offered and the price bandwidth for the proposed offering have also not yet been chalked out.
Ireland is one of the world's top tax havens. Several multinational companies across pharmaceutical, finance, tech, and manufacturing sectors - including Accenture, Google, Pfizer, and Apple - have been carrying out operations in Ireland. Now that Circle has “filed to re-domicile,” it may have to bear “more onerous US taxes under the shift," the Bloomberg report noted.
Before choosing to go public via the IPO route, the company trod down the special purpose acquisition company [SPAC] route in 2021, with a valuation reported at $9 billion. The deal went downhill when Circle did not complete the SEC's "qualification in time."
Average USDC Transaction Size on the Rise
The average USDC transaction size has been on the rise since the beginning of this year. From hovering around $100k, this metric has already notched up to $170k. This points out that the speculative activity amongst whales and institutional players is on the rise, while retail is being relatively passive at the moment. In the same period, the stablecoin’s market cap has also spiked from $24 billion to $33 billion.
For context, USDC rival - Tether’s [USDT] - market cap has also increased from $92 billion to over $110 billion in the same period, supporting the ‘rise in speculative activity amid volatility' narrative.
