Converge22 Dispatch #3: Announcing Web3 Services for Developers

Converge Dispatch is a blog series focused on exciting updates announced during Converge22, Circle’s inaugural crypto conference. See previous articles here and here.

At Converge22, our first ecosystem conference, I was thrilled to share the stage with Nikhil Chandhok and other product leaders who announced significant updates to our product suite along with Circle’s newest product — Web3 Services — which is now available via early private beta (sign up here). 

Why add a Web3 offering to Circle’s product suite that already offers stablecoin liquidity, payments and treasury? These are the three building blocks that can facilitate frictionless exchange of value through stablecoins, merchant payments and management of crypto assets a business holds. But we believe the utility of stablecoins and blockchain is much broader across all use cases of money. This utility will be delivered by developers, who are already building Web3 apps powered by stablecoins that span entertainment, financial services, gaming, NFT marketplaces and many more categories. 

Through our support of the developers who are building these products, we are viscerally aware that building a Web3 business from scratch remains a daunting endeavor. Blockchain and finance have a steep learning curve for any new developer starting with Web3. Lack of best practices on security, heavy financial compliance requirements and a fragmented stack make it much harder to build a production-ready app and run a Web3 business with confidence. Further, hacks and security holes undermine confidence and discourage more developers from building Web3 projects. 

We continue to believe that in the next few years, a million Web3 developers will rewire the financial infrastructure we use today and create a global, equitable, internet-native foundation for frictionless exchange of value. We are announcing the Circle Web3 Services to accelerate developers’ entrance into Web3 by helping to solve these problems for them. 

The acquisition of CYBAVO has provided us with a starting point with a leading security cloud solution for multi-party computation (MPC) wallets and custody. We are combining this custody service and the same platform that powers more than $4 billion in daily USDC transactions, and building an easy-to-access developer platform on top. 

Here are some of the features

Access to blockchain — Our platform enables instant access to the broader blockchain ecosystem. Right out of the box, developers will be able to use managed nodes for more than 40 blockchains and self-service support for more than 1500 tokens, which makes it easy to deploy smart contracts, mint and custody NFTs, connect to third-party exchanges, and access DeFi and staking.

Secure custody — Alongside our payments solution, we’ll now offer the ability to securely store digital assets. We are offering secure non-custodial MPC wallets that avoid a single point of failure by sharding, encrypting and dividing private keys among multiple parties. This secure storage is complemented by enterprise-grade features such as multi-factor authentication, role-based access controls, threshold approvals and more.

Programmable wallets —Developers can also use our infrastructure to programmatically operate wallets for efficient scaling and automation. We offer the ability to create and manage wallets for deposits and withdrawals with APIs, enabling apps to easily scale as new users onboard. Our platform also offers the ability to build secure wallets for end users right into Android and iOS apps with the walletSDK. Users will have access to Web2.0 style secure sign-on (SSO) for recovery.

Security and compliance — Security is a key aspect of our Web3 developer offering, and there are many features that help you protect your business and reduce operational risks. We monitor transactions for money laundering, and we provide a list of flagged addresses for you to gauge next steps. And with built-in support for Verite — the decentralized identity protocol from Centre — we plan to make it easy to stay compliant by connecting with multiple identity issuers who can provide Verite credentials attesting to KYB/KYC guidelines.

Taken together, Circle Web3 Services are cost-effective, scalable and compliant so you can accelerate your time to market. Our goal is to provide a full-stack solution to make it as easy as possible for Web3 developers to bring their services to a billion customers around the world.

I invite you to learn more about our Web3 developer services, and sign up for early access as we develop the platform. Stay tuned for more exciting developments and additional product recaps from Converge.