Circle acquires IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio to strengthen USDC infrastructure

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has acquired IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio in a move designed to fortify its enterprise blockchain capabilities and protect its growing digital asset ecosystem.

What Circle is getting

IBM has been one of the most aggressive blockchain patent filers in the world. During its peak years of 2018 and 2019, the tech giant filed over 500 blockchain-related patents, building a massive intellectual property fortress that spanned everything from consensus mechanisms to enterprise supply chain solutions.

That portfolio now belongs to Circle. The financial terms of the acquisition haven’t been publicly disclosed.

Circle was already moving in this direction. The company was granted its own patent for parallel block processing back in December 2023, a technology designed to improve transaction throughput by processing multiple blocks simultaneously.

The patent protection play

Circle has been acutely aware of patent litigation threat. The company joined the LOT Network, a collaborative defensive patent initiative, in both 2023 and 2025. The LOT Network now encompasses more than 3.8 million patents across over 2,800 members. Both Circle and IBM are members.

The network works like a mutual defense pact. If any member’s patents end up in the hands of a patent troll, other members automatically receive a license to those patents.

IBM’s evolving blockchain strategy

One notable example is IBM’s partnership with IPwe, which launched in early 2021. That collaboration explored tokenizing corporate patents as NFTs on blockchain networks, essentially turning intellectual property into tradeable digital assets.

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