When the story of Circle purchasing Poloniex surfaced on an obscure site called Modern Consensus, it was shot down as fake news. It turns out, the story was accurate and the news was very real. “Circle and Poloniex Accelerate the Emerging Token Economy” reads the headline of the press release Circle issued on February 26 at 8am NYT. Circle is already invested in crypto via its Circle Trade app, but Poloniex connects it to a main artery at the heart of the crypto ecosystem.
There’s a lot of talk of tokens in Circle’s press release, including the phrase “an open global token marketplace”. It’s evident that Circle has big plans for Poloniex and will be taking a hand-on approach as it seeks to enact its vision for the soon-to-be-revitalized exchange. These plans clearly extend beyond disabling the trollbox that was one of Poloniex’s defining features. Circle talks of improving “customer experience” – something Polo is notoriously bad for – as well as “risk, compliance, and technical operations”.