Circle Continues Sell-offs as Voyager Digital Acquires Investment App

Despite ongoing bullish movement in crypto markets, Circle continues to sell off wings of its business.

Circle, a Goldman Sachs-backed crypto startup that launched USD-pegged stablecoin USDC, has agreed to sell its digital asset investment app Circle Invest to Voyager Digital Canada, the operator of digital asset broker Voyager.

Circle Invest customers to be moved to the Voyager Platform by the end of March 2020

As part of the acquisition, Voyager will be integrating features of Circle's new stablecoin platform service into the Voyager Platform, the company announced on Feb. 12. Voyager will also expand its client base to over 200,000 global users by adding 40,000 retail accounts with the transaction.

According to the announcement, the majority of Circle Invest customers are expected to move to the Voyager Platform by the end of March 2020. Following the exchange, Circle and Voyager will partner on strategic business initiatives to deliver low-cost payments to the combined Voyager customer base.

Voyager claims to provide Circle Invest clients with zero-fee trading for 30 coins

Additionally, Circle Invest's retail customers will now have access to a number of Voyager's brokerage services such as zero-fee trading for more than 30 crypto assets, the company said. Rachel Mayer, director of product management at Circle, noted that the firm is excited to provide Circle Invest customers with a “broader depth of retail investment features.” Mayer said:

"This transition comes at a time when Circle is launching new platform services and products for businesses around the world to help them bring the benefits of stablecoins into their products and grow global commerce in new and innovative ways."

On top of that, Voyager will issue common shares to Circle representing around 4% ownership stake. At press time, one share of Voyager (VYGR) is trading at 0.4 CAD ($0.3), up about 1.3% over the past 24 hours, according to data from TradingView.

Both Voyager and Circle declined to provide information regarding the actual number of shares involved in the transaction to Cointelegraph. Circle said that its decision to sell Circle Invest is part of its increasing focus on the development and growth of USDC and building out a suite of commercial services for driving mass adoption. A Circle spokesperson said in an email to Cointelegraph:

“With significant global attention focused on new forms of digital currency backed by central bank money, we are ramping up new products to take advantage of this and help to usher in more mainstream use cases for cryptocurrency. “

Acquisition comes after Circle sold and halted other projects

Circle was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in 2013 with the mission to bring Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies to the mainstream. The company has been apparently restructuring its business lately as Circle also sold its over-the-counter desk to major United States-based crypto exchange Kraken in December 2019 in order to focus on its stablecoin.

Prior to that, Circle was reported on getting a new CEO, with co-founder and former co-CEO Neville transitioning to a role on the firm’s board of directors. After purchasing crypto exchange Poloniex in 2018, Circle announced it was selling the exchange in October 2019.

Previously, Circle halted its weekly crypto market research product Circle Research and terminated payment app Circle Pay, claiming that it wanted to focus on digital currency adoption through Poloniex.

Update 12:50 UTC: This article was updated to add additional information provided by Circle and Voyager.