Circle Announces Global Launch of Bitcoin Banking Platform

Bitcoin services company Circle's digital money platform is now publicly available across the globe.

The US-based startup announced the launch in a 29th September blog post.

The company has spent months beta testing its platform, and during the summer Circle steadily expanded its pool of testers and offered sneak peaks of its future products.

With today's announcement, the firm has also outlined key aspects of its initial service, which includes deposit insurance and international language support.

The company said:

Circle is formally kicking off its launch at Sibos 2014 Boston, where co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire will speak on several digital currency-focused panels.

Notably, Circle clarified in the blog post that all deposits are 100% insured, explaining:

The Boston-based startup joins a small number of bitcoin businesses that insure customer holdings. Coinbase announced its insurance broker last month and Great American Insurance Group recently began offering crime insurance coverage to companies that handle digital currency.

At launch, Circle's platform will include support for seven languages: Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German and English.

Declaring that this enables it to extend its bitcoin services to "40% of the world's population", the company noted that language support is part of its broader global focus for the months ahead and will continue adding new languages as new upgrades to the platforms are rolled out.

"It’s a good start, but we plan to add far more capabilities for international customers over time," the startup said.

Circle has long suggested that it will focus on a global customer base at the outset, rather than focusing on national markets like other companies in the space.

In an earlier blog post penned by CEO Allaire and co-founder and CTO Sean Neville, Circle discussed a roadmap to mainstream adoption that pointed to the global nature of the bitcoin market.

The company said at the time: