Global fintech firm Circle has announced plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal that values the company at $4.5bn.
The transaction, which involves a merger with SPAC Concord Acquisition Corp, is set to raise $691m in proceeds, according to Circle.
The planned listing comes weeks after Circle secured $415m in fiunding from a number of institutional investors including Marshall Wace and Fidelity Management & Research.
Once the deal closes, sometime in Q4 of 2021, Circle will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Circle launched in 2013 as a peer to peer payment network and has subsequently gone on to launch a crypto exchange (Poloniex), a payments service (Circle Pay) and an investment app.
However, most of its focus is now on its USD Coin, which launched in 2018 as a way to convernt US dollars into blockchain tokens and digital currency.
The stablecoin has become the world's fastest growing dollar digital currency, now standing at $22 billion in circulation.