Written by: Wenser
Recently, after the release of the Q4 2025 financial report, "the first stock of stablecoins" Circle (CRCL) has seen a long-awaited strong rebound in its stock price, rising more than 45% in two days, and today it once touched 90 dollars, creating a new high since November last year. In the falling cryptocurrency concept stock market, Circle (CRCL) has temporarily become the center of attention, and major institutions and analysts have started to raise their flags, with many traders even boldly proclaiming that "the stock price of Circle still has tenfold space."
Behind the enthusiastic sentiment, the market may be more concerned about the underlying reasons for this price rebound, as it directly determines whether Circle (CRCL)'s stock price can continue to rise. Odaily Planet Daily will provide a brief analysis of this issue from aspects such as Circle's business performance, institutional views, AI "tickets," and the prediction market, attempting to clarify the key proposition of where Circle's next growth point comes from.
Transformation of Circle's Business Fundamentals: From Stablecoins to Internet Financial Infrastructure
When mentioning Circle, many may still hold the stereotype of it being "the eternal second place in the stablecoin race," but from the perspective of performance and data growth in 2025, the stablecoin USDC under Circle is rapidly catching up with the stablecoin USDT under Tether.
Circle's Recent Report Card: USDC 2025 Transaction Volume Reaches 18.3 Trillion Dollars, Ranking First in the Industry
According to data from Artemis, the global stablecoin transaction volume in 2025 surged by 72% year-on-year, reaching a record 33 trillion dollars; among them, the transaction volume of USDC issued by Circle reached 18.3 trillion dollars, ranking first; in contrast, Tether's USDT transaction volume was only 13.3 trillion dollars.
As of 2026, the transaction volume of USDC remains exceptionally rapid: at the beginning of February, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that, according to Artemis data, the on-chain transaction volume of USDC in January exceeded 8.4 trillion, while the total on-chain transaction volume of the stablecoin market is 10 trillion; in terms of on-chain transaction volume, USDC occupies an overall market share of 84%. In other words, in an unnoticed corner, the trading activity of USDC has quietly climbed. Not only that, but the growth rate of USDC's circulation is also rapidly increasing: as of February 12 local time, the issuance of USDC had increased by about 2.6 billion units in one week.
In comparison, the market value of USDT, "the leader of stablecoins," decreased by 0.8% to 18.361 billion dollars in February, continuing the decline trend of about 1% from January, marking the first time since the Terra incident in 2022 that it has seen a contraction for two consecutive months.
Lastly, looking closely at its 2025 fiscal year performance report, the circulation of USDC at the end of 2025 was 75.3 billion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 72%; the on-chain transaction volume of USDC in Q4 reached 11.9 trillion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 247%, with total revenue in Q4 reaching approximately 770 million dollars, a 77% surge compared to the same period last year; total revenue and reserve income for the 2025 fiscal year were 2.7 billion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 64%. Although its ongoing business net loss reached 70 million dollars, mainly affected by IPO-related equity incentive expenditures of as much as 424 million dollars, Circle expects USDC circulation to maintain a growth rate of about 40% annually in the future, and other business income excluding reserve income is expected to reach about 170 million dollars in 2026, higher than about 110 million dollars in 2025.
My personal guess is that the growth in USDC's circulation and transaction volume may be driven by the combined demand for AI Agents and other crypto payments, the steadily increasing demand in prediction markets, and post-GENIUS Act regulatory business needs. We will elaborate on this later.
Overview of Institutional Views: Some Buyers Dip, Others Are Still Optimistic About Circle "Beating the Market"
Currently, the market shows a clear division regarding the future performance of Circle's stock price: some investment institutions continue to buy on dips, while others are optimistic about its business model upgrade from stablecoins to financial technology infrastructure; however, some research institutions believe that this stock price rebound is mainly driven by a short squeeze and lacks sustainability.
Bernstein: Circle's Stock Price Aiming for 190 Dollars, Maintains "Outperform" Rating
Bernstein pointed out that Circle is no longer seen as merely a "proxy investment target" for cryptocurrency assets, but has transformed into a financial technology infrastructure service provider, with a profound change in its corporate positioning. The company's analyst team believes that in this "fundamental transformation of the global economic system," Circle will play a key role, reaffirming its "Outperform" rating and a target price of 190 dollars in the latest research report, suggesting that the company's stock price still has significant room for growth.
Moreover, Bernstein analysts Gautum Chhugani and others pointed out in the report that Circle's fourth-quarter performance clearly diverged from the overall trend of the cryptocurrency market, emphasizing that the company is moving towards becoming a core internet infrastructure provider, not just focusing on stablecoins or crypto tokens.
Ark Invest: Speaking with Real Money, Circle (CRCL) Stock Holdings Totaling Nearly 350 Million Dollars
Unlike research institutions, Cathie Wood's well-known Silicon Valley investment institution Ark Invest has always been a "major buyer" of Circle.
At the beginning of February, trading documents showed that Ark Invest purchased about 9.4 million dollars worth of Circle stock through two of its ETFs;
On February 12, Ark Invest further increased its holdings by 75,559 shares of Circle (CRCL), valued at about 4.4 million dollars.
According to publicly available information, as of the time of writing, Ark Invest holds approximately 4,015,642 shares of Circle (CRCL) through its funds ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF), ARKF (ARK Fintech Innovation ETF), and ARKW (ARK Next Generation Internet ETF), with a total market value of approximately 349 million dollars (calculated at 87 dollars).
Vanguard Group: Circle (CRCL) Holdings Exceeding 5.65 Million Shares, Once Facing a Loss of Over 400 Million Dollars
On February 14, according to the latest 13F filing submitted to the SEC by the Vanguard Group, the second-largest fund management company globally, it currently holds a cumulative 5,653,110 shares of Circle stock CRCL (currently valued at 339.4 million dollars), with a cost basis of 739.6 million dollars, currently facing a loss of over 400 million dollars.
As Circle (CRCL)'s stock price rebounds to around 87 dollars (the stock price at the time of writing), this nearly 740 million dollar investment is currently showing a profit of over 152 million dollars.
10x Research: Circle Surges Due to Short Squeeze
Yesterday, cryptocurrency research institution 10x Research pointed out that the core driver of Circle's recent stock price increase is not the financial report data itself but the market position structure, which is more likely to trigger a high-probability short covering rather than a simple fundamental reassessment. It is reported that hedge funds established large short positions prior to the financial report release, however, as Circle's stock price soared in one day, it triggered a severe short squeeze, leading hedge funds to incur losses of about 500 million dollars in a single day. 10x Research added that this round of extreme volatility not only reflects Circle (CRCL) but also affects Coinbase (COIN) and Bitcoin, although Circle is a clearly bullish target, the overall market movement is mainly driven by the overall imbalance in the cryptocurrency market's position structure; new market catalysts may emerge soon, potentially reshaping the market narrative, and the market trading logic may return to the fundamentals. In other words, 10x Research is not optimistic about Circle (CRCL)'s future performance.
In summary, Circle is in a crucial period of transformation from the past concept of "the first stock of stablecoins" to "financial technology infrastructure," with the business performance of its stablecoin USDC expected to be promising, and other new revenue streams (non-interest income) have also proven their cash-generating ability to the market with a high gross profit of up to 37 million dollars in Q4.
Whether Circle (CRCL) can continue its strong upward trend may be closely related to three key terms—"AI Payments," "Prediction Markets," and "Institutional Adoption."
The "Growth Booster" for USDC: AI Payments, Prediction Market Transactions, and Large-scale Institutional Adoption
In Circle's financial report and CEO Jeremy Allaire's public statements, we can clearly see that Circle's current revenue channels are rapidly expanding, rather than being overly reliant on the issuance business of the USDC stablecoin as in the past.
Previously, Circle announced that the Circle Payments Network (CPN) has 55 financial institutions registered, with an additional 74 financial institutions undergoing qualification review; the L1 blockchain network Arc's public testnet is live, attracting over 100 participants; the unique adoption rate and integration advantages of USDC also endow Circle with the capability for "automated payments" aimed at AI Agents. This may become its ticket to the next era of interconnected finance.
Circle's "AI Ticket": x402 Protocol, AI Agent Economy, and A2A Transactions
Circle's first ticket comes from AI payments. The x402 standard, led by Coinbase, has become a market highlight since its launch in 2025; the protocol allows AI Agents to directly use USDC to pay for services via HTTP status code 402, such as API data access, computing resources, or content subscriptions, which can be said to "open the last mile of payments" for AI Agents. As a result, USDC can seamlessly integrate into the AI Agent economic system, and transactions proposed by various AI model companies such as A2A (Agent to Agent), M2M (Machine to Machine) can also circulate through USDC.
Previously, analysts predicted that by 2030, the AI Agent economic ecosystem is expected to exceed 30 trillion dollars, with Agentic AI dominating 15% of daily financial decisions, in this regard, USDC has an unparalleled first-mover advantage.
Circle's "Prediction Market Ticket": Prediction Market Transaction Volume Continues to Set New Heights, Weekly Transaction Count Exceeds 38 Million
Another major factor driving the growth of USDC and Circle's business data may be attributed to the continuously rising prediction market track.
According to Dune data, on February 23, the transaction count in the prediction market for the previous week (2.16-22) reached a historical high of 38.01 million; among them, the transaction count on Polymarket was 22.58 million, ranking first; Kalshi had a transaction count of 14.86 million, ranking second.
At the same time, Circle is also making progress in platform-level cooperation with prediction market giants—at the beginning of February, Circle announced a partnership with Polymarket to optimize the stablecoin infrastructure of the prediction market; Circle will introduce transparent, fully reserved stablecoin infrastructure for the prediction market to enhance settlement reliability and reduce friction to support the next phase of development for on-chain financial markets.
Given the "big prediction year" backdrop of major sporting events like the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, USDC transaction volume and custody income will further increase.
Circle's "Institutional Adoption Ticket": Legislation, Trust Banks, and Cooperative Ecosystem
For institutional users, Circle and USDC may be the current only "relatively optimal solution." The main reasons are:
- Firstly, the GENIUS Act legislation framework will promote the large-scale inflow of digital dollar reserves into the U.S. Treasury market, further boosting the issuance and circulation of USDC;
- Secondly, Circle received approval to establish a national trust bank (First National Digital Currency Bank) in December 2025, accelerating its integration into the traditional financial system;
- Thirdly, Circle's partnerships encompass traditional payment institutions (such as Visa), financial software companies (such as Intuit), leading prediction market platforms (such as Polymarket), blockchain payment settlement networks (such as Morph Network), and cryptocurrency exchanges (such as Kraken, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid), etc., gradually building its own "ecological moat."
Conclusion: Concerns About Circle's Stock Price in Coinbase Profit Sharing and Stranglehold of U.S. Banking Industry
In summary, Circle (CRCL) stock price market performance may welcome a wave of strong rebound, but limited by the overall cryptocurrency market situation and the uncertainty of the CLARTITY Act, its future performance still holds certain variables.
Specifically, first, Coinbase divides nearly 1 billion dollars in "promotion profits" for stablecoins each year. According to assessments by BI analysts Paul Gulberg and Samuel Radowitz, if the adoption rate accelerates, Coinbase's stablecoin revenue is expected to grow two to seven times under the framework of the GENIUS Act signed by President Trump in July 2025. For a cryptocurrency exchange with similarly pressured stock prices, this is undoubtedly a crucial piece of the pie.
Secondly, as the "first stock of compliant stablecoins," Circle is bound to face collective repression from the U.S. banking industry. Although its trust bank application has been approved, as Standard Chartered's analysts said in a report, stablecoins pose a real risk to global and U.S. bank deposits, with U.S. bank deposits expected to decrease as the market value of stablecoins grows, with the decrease amount accounting for a weight of the stablecoin market value. Among them, regional banks in the U.S. are most affected, while investment banks are least affected. The report shows that only 14.5% of Circle's reserve assets are bank deposits, and the reinvestment proportion is extremely low. Similarly, traditional banks driven by interests are unlikely to ignore this.
As for whether Circle (CRCL) stock price can once again perform the "tenfold miracle" mentioned at the beginning of the article, apart from last year's "stablecoin boom," it may also need more "regional facilitation policies" provided by the U.S. government and regulatory authorities to give it a helping hand.
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