Circle Acquires Nearly 1,000 IBM Blockchain Patents, Becoming One of the Largest Patent Holders in the US

Circle has acquired nearly 1,000 licensed blockchain-related patents from IBM, covering areas such as blockchain technology, banking and financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply chain traceability, and cloud security. The transaction amount was not disclosed. Circle stated that this patent portfolio will be used to support USDC, Circle Payments Network, its Arc blockchain, and financial tools for AI agents, and that it will explore further business cooperation with IBM. Circle had previously obtained its first patent for parallel blockchain data processing and joined the LOT Network to reduce the risk of patent troll lawsuits. CRCL's stock price rose by approximately 2.5% in pre-market trading.