Circle to Spin Out Poloniex Less Than 2 Years After $400 Million Takeover

Crypto exchange Poloniex is spinning out from its parent firm Circle, the companies announced Friday.

According to a pair of blog posts, Poloniex will now become Polo Digital Assets, Ltd., an “independent international company” backed by an unnamed Asian investment firm. The trading platform will not serve U.S. customers after this year.

U.S. residents have until Dec. 15, 2019 to withdraw their assets, with all trades being suspended on Nov. 1, 2019, the blog post said.

Poloniex said the company has “a multiyear plan to spend more than $100 [million] to develop and expand” its platform. As part of its offers, it will reduce trading fees to 0 percent between Oct. 21 and Dec. 31, 2019.

Circle co-founders Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville wrote in their own announcement that the company plans to “double down” on its “efforts to build a more open, global and accessible financial system,” by growing its stablecoin market and building up SeedInvest, the crowddfunding platform it previously acquired.

Circle first acquired Poloniex in February 2018 for $400 million. At the time, Allaire and Neville wrote that they imagined building Poloniex into a marketplace for “tokens which represent everything of value,” including physical goods, real estate and even creative productions.

In Friday’s blog post, the two wrote:

“It is bittersweet for Circle to see this incredible product and business spin out on its own … We’ve made enormous progress with Poloniex, including massive infrastructure improvements, adding more fiat options with USDC integration, launching best in class native apps for traders, and building global operations capabilities that can deliver excellent customer service.”

Jeremy Allaire appears on CoinDesk Live at Invest: Asia 2019, screenshot via YouTube