Circle announced it intends to become a full-reserve national commercial bank, operating under the supervision and risk management requirements of the Federal Reserve, US Treasury, OCC, and the FDIC.
“We believe that full-reserve banking, built on digital currency technology, can lead to not just a radically more efficient, but also a safer, more resilient financial system,” the firm said in a statement.
A few years ago, Circle, in partnership with Coinbase and through the Centre Consortium, designed the stablecoin USDC to conform with US money transmission supervisory and regulatory standards. USDC is now at more than $27.5 billion in circulation.
In the coming years, Circle expects that USDC will grow into hundreds of billions of dollars in circulation while supporting trillions of dollars in economic activity. Establishing national regulatory standards for dollar digital currencies is crucial to enabling the potential of digital currencies in the real economy, including standards for reserve management and composition, the company said.