Circle Ventures invests in edgeX ahead of token launch, plans USDC on EDGE Chain

Circle Ventures has made an undisclosed investment in edgeX, a decentralized trading platform, ahead of the platform's planned token launch and the rollout of native USDC and Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) on the EDGE Chain.

Discussions between the two companies started in late 2025 and the deal closed last month, edgeX co-founder Kevin Wang said. Circle Ventures was the sole investor in the round, though Wang did not disclose the investment structure, valuation, or whether Circle received a board seat. A Circle spokesperson confirmed the investment and the planned integration but declined to elaborate.

edgeX was founded in March 2024 and launched its testnet and V1 in August 2024. It previously completed a pre-seed round led by Amber Group, which incubated the project, in December 2024; Wang declined to reveal the round's size. The platform currently operates a decentralized perpetual futures exchange on web and mobile. edgeX says it has more than 295,000 users, handles roughly $5 billion in daily trading volume, and supports about $1 billion in open interest. The company said adoption has been especially strong in Asia, helped by a mobile-first experience and institutional liquidity.

Wang said edgeX brings crypto, stocks, and commodities together in a single application, supporting both perpetual and spot markets. The platform has also partnered with Polymarket to bring prediction markets into that environment. Real-world asset (RWA) perpetual futures have become a key growth area, with gold and silver among the most active markets. DefiLlama data ranks edgeX among the top revenue-generating DeFi platforms.

The team currently has around 40 employees and is hiring, particularly for trading community manager roles, according to Wang. He said the founding team has more than six years of experience designing derivatives products for institutional clients. Wang said edgeX aims to expand perpetual futures beyond crypto-native users and position them as a global trading primitive, targeting active traders rather than short-term incentive-driven capital. Education and product design are priorities for growth.

The upcoming USDC and CCTP integration will bring native USDC to the EDGE Chain, the blockchain underpinning edgeX. The company said this should support interoperable, onchain settlements and create new use cases for institutions, traders, market makers, and other ecosystem users. edgeX's token launch is expected before March 31.