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Circle, the firm behind the second-largest stablecoin, USDC, is preparing for its initial public offering (IPO). It’s expected to offer a total of 24 million shares, with 14.4 million coming from existing shareholders, and it’s hoping to offer the shares between $24 and $26. This would value the firm at up to $5.65 billion , according to Bloomberg. The S-1 filing from Circle notes that ARK Investment Management has “indicated an interest in purchasing up to $150.0 million of shares.” Additionally, Bloomberg has reported that BlackRock plans to purchase approximately one-tenth of the shares available in the IPO. BlackRock is also the custodian for nearly all of Circle’s reserves. Circle vs. Tether: What’s in the reserves? Read more: The beef between Circle and Tether Circle has a much larger amount of cash in its reserves than its larger competitor, Tether, and has a larger portion of its reserves in overnight repos. ...

Circle recently announced its Circle Payments Network, which leverages USDC for cross-border payments. If that pitch sounds a lot like Ripple’s XRP-based payments network, RippleNet, that’s because it’s meant to. The giant crypto incumbents are direct competitors for the world’s most valuable settlement rails: sending USD value between banks using cryptography. Circle has its $61 billion USDC, and Ripple has its much smaller, albeit equally compliant, RLUSD. Both companies also have partnerships with banks and payment providers, with Circle boasting over 500 alliances and Ripple claiming to work with thousands . Crypto exchanges report about $55 million worth of RLUSD volume over the last 24 hours. That is 99.4% less than Circle’s $9.8 billion for its much larger USDC. Tearing a page right out of Ripple’s XRP marketing playbook, Circle bemoaned cross-border payments taking “longer than one business day to settle and costing more than 6%.” Just like Rippl...