“The big idea of, ‘Hey, I can pay anyone, anywhere, with whatever digital wallet they have, and it just flows around the internet” — that’s on the horizon. That’s how we built everything we do.”
Jeremy Allaire is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Circle, a financial technology company that allows businesses to leverage blockchain technology and stablecoins to power payment and business solutions. Allaire founded Circle in 2013, hoping to make digital currencies more accessible to mainstream consumers. Before Circle, he co-founded several companies, including Brightcove and Allaire Corporation (which was acquired by Macromedia). Outside of his work in cryptocurrency, Allaire is also an academic enthusiast and spearheaded an online compilation of Noam Chomsky’s works.
Allaire graduated from Macalester College with a political science and philosophy degree, majoring in economics. During his time at the university, he experimented with using the internet to transform communications and media, back when the internet was just beginning to take form. Much of Allaire’s early work influenced how he views politics, free speech, media and the internet.
Allaire and Circle coped quite well through 2022’s cryptocurrency winter, despite the multiple collapses in the space following the downfall of the Terra ecosystem. Circle recorded its best quarter yet during Q3, becoming profitable with a net income of $43 million. In the latter part of the year, in the aftermath of the cryptocurrency market crash, Allaire doubled down on meetings with regulators, pressing for more regulations and competent restrictions on digital currencies. “If we want people to participate in this technology and in these markets in the United States, we need to have clear regulation,” he shared. “People will not trust an opaque offshore hydra company, or whatever you want to call it.”
Circle complied with the sanctions the U.S. Treasury levied against crypto mixer Tornado Cash, blocking specific addresses and cutting off access to USDC for Circle accounts connected to sanctioned addresses — much to the dismay of the larger crypto community. Circle issued a statement soon after, highlighting that while the company had to comply with government regulations, its stance was that activating its “blacklist function” went against the ethos of an open internet.
In January, Allaire responded to an open question from the White House about mitigating risks associated with digital currencies through research and development,
emphasizing the importance of pushing for strategic investments in public chain infrastructure and saying that it would empower major markets to remain competitive even as the internet evolves into a “native global economic system.” He also issued a call to “unleash the private market and open source innovation.”
In December 2022, Circle released a report reviewed by Grant Thornton declaring its treasury reserve holdings at $44.5 billion worth of tokens in circulation. USDC remains a close second behind Tether as the most-used dollar-backed stablecoin and will likely continue its steady catch-up to Tether in terms of market capitalization in 2023.
Allaire has remained very visible in the media in 2023, continuing to appear on CNBC to talk about cryptocurrency or Circle. He also came to cryptocurrency’s defense in a January interview with Bloomberg, saying that “the technology didn’t commit fraud” and focusing on the potential of cryptocurrency as a mainstream, regulated asset.
