Circle Buys IBM's Blockchain Patent Empire for $17.5Bn

Circle Internet Group has acquired over 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued blockchain patents from IBM in a landmark IP deal. This acquisition makes Circle the largest blockchain patent holder in the United States.

The portfolio directly underpins Circle's core products: USDC, the Circle Payments Network (CPN), and Arc, its enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure.

Circle's publicly traded stock, CRCL, is trading at $65.67, up about +5% in the past 24 hours as investors digest this major news. The market cap for CRCL is $17.5Bn.