Circle has become the largest blockchain patent holder in the US by acquiring nearly 1,000 issued patents from IBM‘s portfolio.
The company has not provided details around what the specific patents are, but shared that the portfolio includes over 680 patent families spanning foundational blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply chain verification and secure cloud operations.
Circle says the expanded IP supports the infrastructure behind its USDC stablecoin, the Circle Payments Network, Arc and its growing suite of onchain financial tools. There are also plans for the two companies to explore more commercial opportunities in the near future.
“IBM has been a pioneer in technological innovation, and this acquisition expands Circle’s ability to advance the infrastructure that powers global, internet-native finance,” said Sarah Wilson, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Circle.
Becoming the financial plumbing
Financial plumbing can be seen as a generic term in payments, but the phrase sums up the stablecoin issuer’s aim to operate as the infrastructure provider that owns and runs the technology stack.
Patents are key to this ambition because they protect software and financial innovations from being copied by competitors and give the company the ability to defend its infrastructure in court as the stablecoin market becomes more contested.
Circle was awarded a patent in December 2023, covering parallel block processing, a technique for verifying multiple groups of blockchain transactions at the same time. The technique was developed by Marcus Boorstin, Director of Engineering, and was used to handle high-volume USDC transactions on Solana.
Founded in 1911, IBM spent decades as one of the most prolific patent filers in the world, consistently ranking among the top recipients of US patents for over 30 consecutive years.
Securing patents from IBM could be a vital move to keep Circle’s reputation as the infrastructure layer as tech companies, traditional financial institutions and other firms start to compete in the sector, such as Sony, which recently secured conditional US regulatory approval to establish Connectia Trust.
Keeping pace in the digital dollar race
Tether‘s USDT and Circle’s USDC still hold a comfortable lead in the stablecoin market, though the gap between the two is significant. USDT’s market cap stands near $184bn while USDC holds $73bn.
Earlier this month, Circle received Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approval to establish Circle National Trust, bringing USDC under federal oversight for the first time. The charter places USDC within the same currency standards national banks must follow and allows it to embed the stablecoin into US dollar payments, settlement and capital markets activity.
The company also holds regulatory licences in Europe, the UK, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, and became the first stablecoin issuer licensed under MiCA, a significant advantage as Tether’s USDT chose not to apply for a licence.
Despite the market cap gap, USDC accounted for 70% of all stablecoin volume in the first half of 2026, according to Visa‘s on-chain dashboard. Q1 results showed USDC transaction volume up 263% year-on-year to $21.5tn, with circulation up 28% to $77bn.
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, said: “We are seeing a massive shift,” he said. “While trading remains a core component, the 263% surge in on-chain volume is being driven by integration into corporate treasuries and payment rails.
“For example, our partnerships with Meta and DoorDash, and the embedding of USDC into enterprise systems like Kyriba, are moving us toward a reality where USDC is the ‘invisible’ settlement layer for the global economy.”
