It was during the Converge22 event held this week in San Francisco that Circle announced the acquisition of Elements. It took advantage of this conference to present its new roadmap on cryptocurrency payments in which Elements, a specialist in integrated payments for e-merchants, plays a key role.
An acquisition to boost cryptocurrency payments
Building on its position as a stablecoin issuer, this acquisition aligns with Circle’s goal of rapidly expanding its crypto payment offerings.
In addition, the USDC issuer intends to bring real added value to e-merchants. By lowering barriers to entry, they can access next-generation payments and financial services. This is confirmed Nafis Jamal, Founder and CEO of Elements :
” Elements’ mission is to put more money in the hands of merchants. With Circle, we knew the natural synergy of our business models would create an opportunity to deliver a seamless, low-cost payment and settlement experience for merchants using a digital currency they can trust.“.
By integrating a payment orchestration platform into its ecosystem, Circle opens up new possibilities for expansion with Elements. In this respect, this is a real boon in a hyper-competitive stablecoin environment.
If the top management of Circle does not hide its satisfaction with the acquisition of Elements, the company has however not disclosed the terms.
Acquisition of Elements: a tree that hides the forest
The Elements acquisition announcement wasn’t Circle’s only surprise at Converge22. Thus, the company made several other announcements. Among the latter is a strategic partnership with Robinhood, which will now integrate USDC into its offer.
Additionally, Circle hopes to make its crypto available on five platforms: Arbitrum, Cosmos, NEARProtocol, OptimismFND, and Polkadot.
Separately, Circle also unveiled its new permissionless cross-chain transfer protocol. Indeed, it will enable USDC interoperability for developers and users. This is revealed by the twitter account company official:
“ Developers building wallets, gateways, payment applications, financial services tools and more will be able to perform simple and cross-chain USDC transactions, simplifying the user experience and maximizing the efficiency of the capital. »
Circle offers itself an acquisition to match its crypto ambitions. However, this is not the company’s first rodeo in this area. We remember the acquisition of Poloniex in 2018 in order to compete with Coinbase. She had left a bitter taste at Circle. Indeed, Poloniex had slipped through his fingers thereafter, preferring to marry a group of Asian investors. Let’s hope this time that Circle will live its happy ending with Elements.
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