Today, we announced that we have signed agreements to acquire CYBAVO, a breakthrough crypto technology company. Founded in 2018, CYBAVO is a pioneer in core crypto security, custody, operations and blockchain infrastructure platform services, providing services to leading firms across nearly every sector of the crypto and Web3 landscape. Together with CYBAVO, we hope to advance the adoption of USDC and Web3 applications while deeply integrating our core product offerings. We will also continue to invest in, build and operate CYBAVO's products and services and incorporate them as a new product pillar for Circle.
CYBAVO co-founders Paul Fan and Tim Hsu are veteran leaders in fundamental crypto and security technology, and have been at the forefront of security technology innovation for decades. They had a vision for a future world where more and more core applications and services would be built on crypto and blockchain infrastructure. They correctly saw that the fundamental operations and infrastructure needed to build robust and highly secure applications on crypto required a completely different kind of platform infrastructure, and they set out to create it.
What they have built over the past several years is incredibly impressive. CYBAVO is unlocking value for developers and operators across nearly every major sector impacted by crypto and Web3, from Exchanges and Trading and Asset Management, to Payments, DeFi, Blockchain Games, NFTs, Identity, and other commercial applications.
At the core of CYBAVO is an ‘infrastructure as a service’ platform that combines their unique ‘Distributed Risk and Responsibility Model’ for digital asset custody and security, highly customizable workflows and operational controls, and a deeply extensible model for integrating and running blockchains, protocols and smart contracts. With this platform, developers and businesses can focus on building apps and services that easily and securely tap dozens of different blockchains and protocols, while leveraging the powerful custody, security, blockchain node management, smart contract integration layer and client SDKs of CYBAVO to deliver great customer experiences.
The CYBAVO suite includes:
- A Multi-Party Computation (MPC) -based vault system with a customizable policy and workflow engine and full API access
- Support for hundreds of blockchain protocols and tokens
- Support for easily plugging in smart contracts and DeFi protocols across major L1 and L2 environments
- Multichain NFT minting, custody and transaction management
- Client SDKs for integrating MPC-based custody and transactions into native mobile apps
- Full-scale blockchain node management and staking services
- Deployment in on-premise (self-hosted) and managed cloud delivery
Crypto Platform Services and Web3
When Circle built and launched USDC, we envisioned it as a protocol and platform that developers could build on for seamlessly integrating a trusted and reliable digital dollar into their on-chain applications. Today, thousands of 3rd party developers have integrated USDC into their products and services, and we are seeing the number of projects using USDC growing incredibly fast. As an open platform, we want as many developers as possible to be able to easily integrate our stablecoin market infrastructure, and we want to support the growth of a wide array of use cases for digital assets.
Alongside USDC, Circle has been building out a suite of self-service products and developer API services that build on the strength of USDC. We’ve seen thousands of companies sign up for these products, and hundreds of companies building on our API services. These customers span a broad array of categories that touch multiple aspects of crypto and Web3.
With CYBAVO, we can advance our own technology capabilities, adding more advanced security, workflows and protocol support to the Circle Account and API capabilities our customers need, while also offering a much broader suite of enterprise and developer services for those building on USDC and Web3 infrastructure.
Web 2.0 was supported by the advent of “cloud services” that made it simple for developers to focus on building software instead of operating hardware and data centers. Similarly, Web3 developers need to focus on delivering great customer experiences without worrying about fundamental digital asset security, operations and blockchain infrastructure management, creating demand for a new category of services, “Crypto Platform Services.”
“Crypto Platform Services” has emerged alongside the surge in developers and companies looking to build on Web3. Accelerating more Web3 applications will help accelerate adoption of dollar digital currency and advance our mission of increasing global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value.
Over the next few years, the market for Web3 apps will “cross the chasm,” expanding into major consumer and enterprise-scale applications, bringing the power of the global crypto economy to everyone, everywhere. We’re excited to advance this opportunity together with CYBAVO.
What’s Next
Once the acquisition with CYBAVO closes, we’ll share more details about our plans for the future. Join us in San Francisco this September at Converge22, Circle’s crypto ecosystem conference, to find out how Circle and CYBAVO are accelerating Web3 adoption together.
