Circle Calls for a Crypto Celebration Earmarking 5 Years Ago Today They Opened Bitcoin Buying Options

In a recent blog post, Circle announced that it is celebrating five years of crypto OTC trading.

Just five years ago, the company was launching the original Circle consumer app that allowed people in the United States and the United Kingdom to use debit or credit card to buy Bitcoin (BTC).

Circle Celebrates Five Years Operating

After five years of operating in the market, Circle is currently offering one of the largest OTC desks in the cryptocurrency market. In 2018, the OTC handled more than $24 billion in notional volume.

The desk started with Circle employees buying Bitcoin to meet customer demand. In the beginning, the beta version of the application was by invitation only. However, it eventually became open to the general public and the popularity grew.

Dan Matuszewski, the current head of Circle Trade, joined the team to help the firm meet liquidity needs. At that time, Bitcoin was being traded around $500 and it had a market capitalization of $7 billion. Now, Bitcoin has a market cap 10 times larger.

Later in 2015, the cryptocurrency market entered a bear trend and Bitcoin dropped under $200. However, Circle Trade continued to grow during the year. They were working day after day in order to build one of the most efficient services for buying and selling Bitcoin in bulk.

In 2016, the Bitcoin network experienced the second halving in history. The halving took place in July but Bitcoin markets picked up in the months prior.

People speculated on what the added scarcity would do to Bitcoin. In 2017, Bitcoin ended up reaching its all-time high of $20,000. Bitcoin demand started to grow once again and Circle was there ready to offer services to those users that requested them.

Ethereum has also changed the way in which Circle worked. Back in 2014, Ethereum was launched. In 2016, the market changed completely. Bitcoin was the largest digital asset but a new virtual currency, Ethereum (ETH), started to grow.

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) started to grow as well. Thus, new assets emerged and Circle Trade started to offer other virtual currencies rather than Bitcoin alone.

In 2017, Bitcoin and Ethereum grew exponentially reaching new highs. At the beginning of 2018, Ethereum reached its record being traded above $1,400 when in 2016 it was traded close to $1.

In the blog post, Circle commented about the crypto market:

“The current market lull is somewhat reminiscent of 2015, where innovation in the industry was high but overall market activity relatively low. Unlike in 2015, however, awareness of the asset class is now ubiquitous, with more established institutions and tech giants entering the space each month.”

At the moment, experts believe that the market will start growing in the near future. Although it is not possible to be 100% sure when the next bull market will start, most of the analysts believe that the long term trend for Bitcoin is positive.

Circle will be clearly playing an important role in the space.

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