‘When people use the Circle product…you don’t see Bitcoins. It’s sort of

underneath.’

Those are the words of the serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, who is

the Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Circle.

In this article, the above statement is of great interest to us. But

first, it will help if we knew the company that Allaire leads. And in

that case; where else to begin than what has made it to be in the news

in the past few days.

Circle, at the beginning of this week, was granted an electronic money

license from Financial Conduct Authority, a financial regulator in the

United Kingdom. It is the first Bitcoin company-even though Allaire

doesn’t view it that way, as we will see later- to receive this approval

in the UK.

Quite a feat, of course…

And almost immediately after getting this approval, the

Dublin-headquartered company secured a working partnership with Barclays

Bank. With a spokesperson of the bank telling Reuters, “We support the

exploration of positive uses of blockchain that can benefit consumers

and society.”

This wasn’t the first ‘first’ for the company, though.

It has been a long journey

In September 2015 Circle became the first Bitcoin business to be

registered under the New York’s new Bitlicense law.

It defied the wave of Bitcoin startups exiting New York in protest to

the law that they viewed to put a lot of burden on their operations,

especially in regards to KYC and AML requirements.

But when did it all start…..

Circle was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in 2013. Like many

other Bitcoin startups, it started as a simple wallet service provider

before undergoing gradual but significant changes.

Aside from building on top of this simple initial model, the company has

gone ahead to successfully raise capital in three rounds.

In October 2013 it raised $9 million in its Series A round from Jim

Breyer and General Catalyst Partners. The series B capital happened in

March 2014. Eight investors, including Breyer Capital, took part and

$17 million was raised.

In April 2015, Circle raised $50 million in its Series C round from

Goldman Sachs, General Catalyst Partners, Accel, Oak Investment Partners

and Pantera Capital.

This interest from investors has made the company one of the most funded

Bitcoin startups.

Hold, send and spend your fiat on Bitcoin

To access Circle’s services, you have to download their app from Play

Store or Apple store. The Android app is integrated with near-field

communication (NFC) making its use for payment even more diverse.

With the app, you can hold, send and spend money in the form of dollars,

sterling pounds and other fiat currencies. By working with partners like

Barclays Bank, Circle is able to give its users a seamless and

frictionless way to move their money around.

“We want… to connect the benefits of digital currency with the existing

financial system. And the existing currencies that people use, day to

day, the currencies they’re paid in, the currencies they pay people with

etc,” Jeremy Allaire has explained, “and connect that not just with

blockchain technology but other major technical innovations that make

doing what we do possible.”

While the company has been identified as a Bitcoin wallet service, its

founders do not view it that way. “We never thought of ourselves as a

Bitcoin startup,” Jeremy Allaire has told Techcrunch, “The media

certainly classified us that way because we were involved with the

technology.”

Is it tricking people into using Bitcoin?

With this view of Allaire of his company and considering the fact that

Circle users do not see money in their account in Bitcoin units, it is

not farfetched to believe that the company is ushering in an era when

users do not have to know that they are using Bitcoin.

Of course, this goes against what we have always seen within the Bitcoin

ecosystem. It is something new.

It goes without saying that the Bitcoin community is full of individuals

and companies pushing for the adoption of the technology through

explaining to would-be users how it works and the benefits it has for

them. Evangelizing is the word.

And that has always had some political element to it. Indeed, in the

early days, many adopted Bitcoin because it promised a new way of

exercising personal freedom. The fact that it was money free from

government authority and control of commercial bankers was enough for

many.

But Bitcoin is going mainstream. No one can stop those who few it just

as a technology to simplify business processes.

It is all about improving business processes

And in the context of business; what if we treat bitcoin as the detail

under the hood? What if we build solutions on it and sell just the

experience to the user? The user does not need to know they are using

Bitcoin or the blockchain. That is exactly what Circle is trying to do.

For this company, Bitcoin and the Blockchain have become the back office

stuff that only the technical staff needs to know about. Or those

customers who really what to know how the stuff works.

Of course, that sounds like trying to tricking people into using

Bitcoin. Maybe it is. But if you look around, there are far too many

products that we use and like the experience, even fall in love with the

experience. But we never know really how everything turns under the hood

to provide that experience.

For instance, a teenage girl using her smartphone to chat with her

friends does not know and does not even care to know what magic happen

between her fingers and the phone’s screen to enable her, swipe, type

and click smoothly.

The same goes for cars, the internet and almost everything else we use

on the daily basis. Obviously, Bitcoin and the Blockchain will obviously

not be the first ones.

Indeed, Circle could be setting the stage for a major shift in the

application of Bitcoin and the Blockchain.

Images courtesy of

Flickr

and YouTube