Today, Circle and Concord Acquisition Corp said Circle’s NYSE listing through a merger with Concord SPAC has been abandoned. Circle is the issuer of the second largest stablecoin, USDC.

The two companies agreed to merge for the first time in July 2021 in a deal valued at $4.5 billion. The transaction timeline was extended in February, doubling Circle’s valuation to $9 billion. The recent collapse of FTX and its impact on the cryptocurrency sector makes it difficult for a merger to take place at that valuation.

“Becoming a public company continues to be part of Circle’s core strategy to enhance trust and transparency, which has never been more important,” said Jeremy Allaire, Circle co-founder and CEO.

Circle previously made relatively small investments in FTX and FTX.US.

The issuer of the stablecoin has a lot of cash. He said his own cash reserves (separate from USDC) were nearly $400 million at the end of the third quarter. The company raised that amount in venture backing in April, including from BlackRock and Fidelity. BlackRock now manages a large proportion of the reserve assets backing the USDC stablecoin, which currently has a market capitalization of $44 billion.

While the latest crypto crash hasn’t negatively affected the USDC stablecoin, one of Circle’s products has. Circle Yield was a product operated in conjunction with Genesis Capital, which allowed users to deposit USDC, which Genesis lent. In forecasts earlier this year, Circle estimated it would have $2.5 billion in loans this year. However, when Genesis ran into trouble in November, the bottom line was only $2.6 million, small enough for Circle to cover any possible loss of customers. The performance was seen as a significant income opportunity.

However, in the meantime, interest rates have risen significantly, meaning Circle is earning a decent return on the $44 billion USDC reserves. As a result, Circle became profitable in the third quarter, earning $274 million in interest and $43 million in net income.