Circle Internet Financial (Circle), the company behind the popular USDC stablecoin, called off its merger with a blank check company this morning, ending its SPAC-led run toward going public. Circle’s SPAC deal made news when announced last year and earlier this year when it was repriced.
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Last we heard, Circle had renegotiated its SPAC transaction, boosting its enterprise value from $4.5 billion to $9 billion. What happened between then and now to get us from a new, higher deal price to a termination?
We’re following that particular arc today. Our investigation will include taking a look back at Circle’s financial results from both 2021 and the first half of 2022, data that we will cross with results from USDC in the back half of 2022. And, yes, we’ll need to talk about FTX at least a little bit.