Circle is one of the growing Bitcoin service in the industry. They claim to be an easy, instant, secure and global platform for sending and receiving Bitcoin. They accept debit and credit cards and the Bitcoins you store with them are insured with highly-rated global underwriters.

Availability

Circle is available globally having seven different languages which includes English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Japanese and Chinese. Even so, using Circle outside the US will not be easy since only US bank accounts and credit cards are accepted for withdrawals and deposits. Still, users outside the US can still use Circle but they need to get Bitcoins first and then they can send them to their Circle account.

Circle is also available in iOS and Android mobile app where you can pay and get paid with an email or a text.

Security

Circle also uses Multi-factor authentication for users in signing up an account. They claim to have a military-grade security system to protect users’ deposited Bitcoins. As mentioned above, all the money deposited to Circle are insured at no cost to users. Circle also requires users to use two-factor authentication everytime users withdraw their money out from their account to attain the high level security.

Improvements

On September 2015, the New York state granted Circle Internet Financial the first BitLicense. Aside from Bitcoin, users can now send, receive and store US dollars in the Circle app. Whether you buy Bitcoins or not, you can enjoy the features and benefits that Circle offers. If you prefer storing US dollars with Circle, you can still interoperate with Bitcoin wallets and services around the world. It means Circle can instantly convert your US dollars to Bitcoin and your Bitcoin to US dollars. Users can also switch preference as to what currency they want to hold without fees. They are also planning to add more currencies and users can expect the same.

Circle has also faced some problems and issues:

Service interruptions

Since the announcement, there have been some service interruptions reported by some customers. There has been seem to be a Circle outage. According to them, Circle temporarily stopped them to transfer Bitcoin for a month and others said deposits and withdrawals are paused. Circle explained in CNN that there have been some changes made. There was an update on their send and receive limits. Most were given increase in limits and some were decreased or remained the same. Circle still granted increase to those customers who wanted to take more out of the service and then returned the limits to normal level. Moreover, the service interruptions were not made by Circle. According to Hawkins, the problem was related to Amazon Web Services issues. The issues affected a lot of Web companies and services and Amazon itself, but then, the problem was resolved and everything is back to normal.

Circle distancing from Bitcoin

In one of their marketing campaign, Circle announced that they are distancing themself from Bitcoin. Sean Neville, President and co-founder said to Reuters that they are considering themselves as a consumer finance company and Bitcoin technology is just one that enables them to be. The industry was then shocked about the statement as they see Circle as a Bitcoin startup.

Circle Internet Financial Inc. is a licensed US money transmitter and a FinCEN regulated company. It owns and operates the web financing service, Circle.com

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