Key Takeaways
- Circle shares fell 12% in the week to Nov. 11 after its third-quarter report, as crypto stocks, including Coinbase, sold off.
- Revenue rose 17% to $865 million, but $182 million came from a one-time token presale, and reserve income fell 8% as rates dropped.
- USDC has to grow again before the stock’s discount to analysts’ targets looks like a bargain.
Circle Internet Group (CRCL) closed at $67.12 on Nov. 11, down 12% from its Nov. 4 close, after a third-quarter beat that looked better than it was. A crypto slide piled on and caught Coinbase (COIN), which collects the biggest share of the interest on USDC’s reserves.
The beat came from a one-time token sale
Circle’s revenue and reserve income rose 17% to $865 million, but $182 million of it came from the presale of ARC, its new blockchain’s token. Without it, revenue fell to $683 million from $740 million a year earlier. Reserve income fell 8% to $658 million as Circle’s return on its reserves dropped 61 basis points, and USDC in circulation ended September at $73.9 billion, flat from a year earlier.
Lower rates cost Coinbase too, since it received about $1.4 billion of Circle’s $2.6 billion of reserve income in 2025. Yet Coinbase’s stablecoin revenue rose 5% from the second quarter to $307 million in the third, as average USDC held in its own products climbed 49% from a year earlier to $22 billion. Coinbase keeps all the interest on that USDC, so its slice is growing even as Circle’s total stays flat.
Several firms cut their targets the next morning, and JPMorgan said the core business is slowing. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev, who kept his Underperform rating, called the quarter “uneventful.” Consensus has normalized EPS halving to $1.16 in 2026, and even 2028’s $2.11 trails 2025’s $2.35:
Crypto’s slide made it worse
Crypto stocks were already shaky after Binance’s $6.3 billion hack on Oct. 29. Tech and crypto stocks sold off together on Nov. 5, and bitcoin slid toward its lowest level since August on Nov. 10 as spot bitcoin ETFs saw outflows and October’s inflation came in hotter than expected. Democrats’ Nov. 3 sweep of Congress also has the crypto industry bracing for tougher rules.
Circle had no major news of its own after Nov. 5, but its stock trades with crypto. Its 3.3% bounce on Nov. 11 barely dented the week’s loss.
TIKR tracks 29 analysts on Circle Internet Group. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Circle Internet Group, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Circle Internet Group’s Analyst Ratings
The discount only works if USDC grows
Circle trades at about 50x forward earnings, near the low end of its range over the past year and well below its 72x average:
That’s a lower multiple on much smaller earnings. Analysts’ average target has fallen to $106 from $167 a year ago, but still sits about 57% above the Nov. 11 close:
Fees are the strongest counterargument: Circle’s payments network hit $41.3 billion of annualized volume, and Tazapay, a deal due to close in 2027, brings over $25 billion more. But without the token sale, reserve income was 96% of third-quarter revenue. Hot October inflation now has traders betting on a December rate hike, which would lift Circle’s reserve yield, but that would be the Fed doing the work, not USDC.
There’s no rush to buy until USDC in circulation grows again, however cheap the stock looks against the Street’s targets. The fourth-quarter report, likely in late February, will show whether it has. USDC ended September at $73.9 billion, so that’s the number to beat.
So what is Circle stock actually worth?
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