Circle buys IBM blockchain patents to expand payments network

Circle has acquired IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio, adding close to 1,000 issued patents and more than 680 patent families, the digital financial platform said Monday. The Circle IBM blockchain patents acquisition gives the company a larger intellectual-property base for USDC, Circle Payments Network, Arc and other on-chain financial products, according to Circle.

Circle said the purchase makes it the largest holder of blockchain patents in the United States. The company linked the acquisition to its broader effort to build infrastructure for internet-based finance, including stablecoin payments, on-chain products and agentic financial tools.

The patent portfolio spans banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification, secure cloud operations and underlying blockchain technology, Circle said. The company also said it expects to consider additional commercial opportunities with IBM, without detailing specific projects.

What did Circle buy from IBM?

Circle bought a blockchain patent portfolio from IBM, covering more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 granted patents, according to the company’s announcement. A patent family generally refers to related patent filings that protect the same invention across one or more jurisdictions, giving the holder a broader legal position around a technology.

Sarah Wilson, Circle’s general counsel and corporate secretary, said in the announcement that intellectual property is important to the company’s goal of increasing use of on-chain infrastructure. She said IBM had been an early force in technology development and that the transaction increases Circle’s capacity to build infrastructure for global internet-native finance.

The acquisition adds a defensive and strategic layer to Circle’s payments and stablecoin operations. Patents do not by themselves create payment volume or regulatory approval, but they can help a company protect technology, structure licensing discussions and support product development in contested areas of financial infrastructure.

Circle operates USDC, a dollar-linked stablecoin, and has been building products that use blockchain networks for payments and settlement. In payments, blockchain infrastructure can be used to record transactions on shared ledgers and support faster movement of value between participants, while regulated firms often add compliance controls, custody arrangements and permissioned access around those systems.

The IBM deal follows another regulatory step for Circle. The company said this month that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved its plan to establish Circle National Trust, a national trust bank.

Circle said Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary digital-asset custody services to Circle and its affiliates. The trust bank could also provide digital-asset custody directly to institutional clients, according to the company.

Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder, chairman and chief executive, said at the time that OCC approval was a step toward bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core U.S. financial system. He said federal oversight of the trust bank would support transparency, governance and scale for Circle’s infrastructure.

The moves come as established financial institutions assess blockchain less as a speculative crypto venue and more as a technology for settlement and asset records. PYMNTS reported July 17 that traditional finance is focusing on features such as programmability, shared ledgers, tokenized ownership and near-real-time settlement inside regulated institutions and controlled networks.

This story draws on original reporting from PYMNTS.