On a fateful evening in March, Jeremy Allaire sat in a Dubai hotel room as a catastrophe unfolded. Thousands of miles away from his team, the CEO of Circle could only watch as the company’s flagship product—the stablecoin USDC—lost its $1 peg and tumbled on every major crypto exchange.
Allaire had just wrapped up a headline appearance at a finance conference in Abu Dhabi, and he planned to take the weekend off to celebrate his son’s birthday. They were set to ride camels and dine at the Burj Khalifa. But with USDC in free fall, Allaire would have to cancel.
