The consortium that backs USDC is seeking a CEO as stablecoin volumes surge

The Centre consortium – the group behind the USDC stablecoin – is looking for a CEO to helm the organization, according to several sources familiar with the process. 

Launched in 2018, the development and growth of USDC has mostly been spearheaded by Boston-based Circle, which pivoted at the end of last year to focus entirely on building products tied to the Ethereum-based digital dollar. Still, the plan for the project was for its to be ultimately led by Centre, which would function as its own independent entity. Crypto exchange Coinbase is also a founding member of Centre. 

The endeavor to hire a CEO signals the next step in Centre's journey, which will include the onboarding of financial institutions and discussions with central banks across the globe, according to several sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The move to expand Centre follows the lead of two other major consortium-backed stablecoin initiatives, Facebook's Libra and the lesser-known Celo Alliance. 

Indeed, the hunt for a new leader for Circle is occurring in lockstep with the build-out of the Libra Association, which has been expanding its team, littering LinkedIn with job adverts including this one for a developer associate and developer marketing lead. 

A spokesperson for Circle did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

Still, the C-suite hunt comes amid what could be called a flourishing in stablecoin volume since the beginning of this year. 

As pointed out by The Block's Larry Cermak earlier this week, on-chain stablecoin transactions have seen unprecedented growth in that time, with the vast majority in the form of Tether. Such transactions topped $45 billion in March as anxiety gripped global markets. 

"The adjusted transaction volume, which is a metric developed by Coin Metrics that estimates the actual economic throughput while attempting to remove activity connected to mixers, self-churn, privacy enhancements, spam, and change outputs, hit an all-time high, by far, in March. In April, the volume has fallen slightly but it's still the second-highest volume in history," Cermak wrote.

As The Block has reported, the stablecoin ecosystem continues to see new entrants. As profiled earlier this week, a new startup is preparing to launch a new lending protocol called Liquity that includes an in-house stablecoin. 

Meanwhile, global regulators are moving in the direction of closer oversight of the stablecoin space. In mid-April, the G20-backed advisory body FSB issued a list of recommendations for the monitoring of so-called "global stablecoins."