Investment bank William Blair reiterated its outperform rating on Circle (CRCL) shares after the stablecoin issuer's third-quarter results topped both the bank's and Wall Street estimates.

The share were 3.9% lower in pre-market trading Wednesday, around $94.50.

Analyst Andrew Jeffrey continues to see USDC as the likely stablecoin standard, putting Circle at the center of the programmable money revolution.

While the muted market response reflects Circle’s premium valuation and limited near-term catalysts, the analyst recommends that investors use any weakness in the shares to build positions, arguing that rival proprietary stablecoins will struggle to match USDC’s scale and liquidity.

Jeffrey highlighted steady progress in Circle’s infrastructure initiatives, including its orchestration layer, CPN, and its layer-1 blockchain, Arc, both of which gained traction as the company added ecosystem participants and advanced tokenization capabilities.

Arc now counts 100 participants, with plans for a mainnet debut in 2026 and exploration of a native token, the report noted.

Transaction volume rose sharply, with trailing 12-month total payment volume (TPV) up 101x to an annualized $3.4 billion, fueling higher fees.

Circle now expects 2025 transaction revenue of $90 million–$100 million, above prior guidance of $75 million–$85 million, growth that William Blair sees as key to scaling and diversifying revenue.