Circle Internet Group Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 4, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Neutral Sentiment: Q3 revenue and reserve income rose 17% year over year to $865 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 85% to $317 million. Results included $182 million in ARC presale revenue, which lifted reported margins; adjusted EBITDA margin was 50% excluding ARC.
  • Negative Sentiment: USDC circulation ended the quarter at $73.9 billion, flat year over year, while reserve income fell 8% to $658 million as lower reserve yields outweighed higher average circulation. Circle said a full quarter of its Hyperliquid and renewed Binance arrangements will affect Q4 margins.
  • Positive Sentiment: USDC usage strengthened despite flat ending circulation: on-chain transaction volume rose 49% to $13.9 trillion, representing 79% of stablecoin transaction volume. Minting and redemptions reached a quarterly record of $208 billion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Circle Payments Network annualized volume reached $41 billion at quarter-end, up more than 15 times year over year, and surpassed $58 billion by October 30; 205 financial institutions were enrolled. Circle expects the planned $400 million stock acquisition of Tazapay, which has connections across more than 100 payout markets, to expand CPN’s reach, with closing expected in 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Circle’s Arc network launched its mainnet in September with 11 founding validators and more than 100 institutions and applications; the company reported about $1.5 billion of assets on Arc by late October. Management is positioning Arc, CPN, and USDC for growth as regulation and institutional adoption advance, while noting that future monetization and adoption remain in development.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Circle Internet Group Q3 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Circle's third quarter 2026 earnings call. I am Scott Blair, Circle's Head of Strategic Finance and Investor Relations. Earlier this morning, we posted our earnings press release and earnings presentation on the Circle Investor Relations website, investor.circle.com. A transcript of this call will be posted on that website once available. I need to remind everyone that our earnings press release, presentation, and this call contain statements that are forward-looking. Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified, and some of which are beyond our control, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Information concerning risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements is included in our SEC filings.

Operator

Additionally, nothing in this presentation constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities or an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity. We will also disclose non-GAAP financial measures on this call today. Definitions of those non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations can be found in the earnings release and earnings presentation, which are posted on investor.circle.com. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, GAAP measures. Today, I am joined by Jeremy Allaire, our Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman, and Jeremy Fox-Geen, our Chief Financial Officer, who will take us through Q3 results. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jeremy Allaire.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Scott. I am excited to be here with all of you today to discuss Circle's third quarter results. As I always do, I want to start at a higher level with where we are and why this is such an important moment. We are approaching an extraordinary inflection point. In January, the GENIUS Act goes into effect. That is the moment when digital dollars like USDC become a federally recognized part of the U.S. dollar financial system, and with that, they also will become an even more important part of the global financial system as policymakers globally look to embrace this new regime. Think about what that means. For more than a decade, stablecoins have proven their utility in digital asset markets and in a growing range of payments, but many of the world's largest institutions and corporations have been waiting for clear policies on stablecoins.

Speaker 1

That wait is ending. Banks, public companies, financial services firms, payments companies, and technology companies can now build on regulated digital dollars with confidence. This is the moment digital dollars enter the mainstream, and we believe it will drive tremendous growth and opportunity for Circle. Circle is made for this moment. We hold a clear leadership position in digital dollars. USDC is the world's largest regulated digital dollar, and in the third quarter, it carried 79% of all stablecoin transaction volume. We have deep global liquidity, one-for-one minting and redemption around the clock through banking partners around the world. In Q3, a record $208 billion of USDC was minted and redeemed. We have built the technology infrastructure, one platform with USDC, the Circle Payments Network, and Arc all live today.

Speaker 1

We have Circle National Trust, federally chartered by the OCC alongside our New York Trust charter, giving the institutions that build with us a federally supervised foundation. This is Circle's moment. This is a turning point in the global adoption of digital currency, and we hold the leadership position. Over the next few minutes, I will walk you through how that foundation continued to play out in the third quarter. Let me start with how we think about Circle, because it shapes how you should read our results. Circle is a platform company. We are building three networks, and each one is a network effects business in its own right. In digital assets, the more USDC is adopted, the deeper the liquidity and utility become, which drives more adoption.

Speaker 1

In Circle Apps, led by Circle Payments Network, every new member and every new capability makes the network more valuable to everyone already on it. Arc is far more than a payments chain. Arc is an economic operating system that brings money, financial assets, contracts, and governance onto the internet, connecting people and institutions all around the world. Every new builder and every new application makes it more valuable. What makes this so powerful is that these networks compound each other. CPN drives demand for our digital assets and brings traffic and usage onto Arc. Arc attracts more and more applications that need digital dollars, and it is a superior execution environment for financial assets built on USDC, from tokenized real-world assets to on-chain protocols. As USDC adoption grows, it creates demand for richer forms of payments and settlement, which brings more institutions to CPN.

Speaker 1

This is why we measure ourselves not only by what we sell, but also by what others build and grow on our platform. This is not just about payments, and it is not just about digital dollars. It is about multiple compounding flywheels on one platform. Every new member, every new builder, and every new asset makes the whole platform more valuable. Turning to the quarter. Q3 brought major platform milestones and strong financial results. Total revenue and reserve income was $865 million, up 17% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was $317 million, up 85%. These results include $182 million from our ARC token pre-sale. USDC in circulation ended the quarter at about $74 billion, flat year-over-year in a soft digital asset market. I want to be direct about that. Balances were flat, but usage continues to grow.

Speaker 1

USDC on-chain transaction volume grew 49% to $13.9 trillion. Across our platform, the quarter was full of milestones. Arc Mainnet went live on September 16 with 11 founding validators and more than 100 applications. CPN reached $41 billion in annualized payment volume, up more than 15 times year-over-year, with 205 financial institutions enrolled. We announced an agreement to acquire Tazapay, which brings USDC to the last mile and accelerates CPN. We signed a new five-year agreement with Binance alongside a $100 million equity investment in Circle, and USDC and Circle are now on the front of Chelsea Football Club shirts. Each of these moves strengthens a different part of our platform. Let me take them in turn. We are expanding USDC's reach around the world through both activation and awareness.

Speaker 1

On activation, Binance is the world's largest digital asset platform with more than 300 million registered users, and 77% of them are in emerging markets. Our new five-year agreement, alongside Binance's $100 million investment in Circle, puts USDC at the center of that platform for years to come. That is distribution into exactly the markets where digital dollars matter most, where people need a stable, accessible dollar the most. On awareness, Circle is now a Principal Partner of Chelsea Football Club, with USDC on the front of the shirt for the 2026/27 season. Chelsea has over 650 million fans worldwide, and Premier League matches reach 1.2 billion homes in 189 countries.

Speaker 1

As digital dollars go mainstream, we want USDC to be the digital dollar people know and trust, and this puts USDC in front of a massive global audience residing in many of the most important emerging markets driving stablecoin adoption. Turning to payments. The Circle Payments Network had an outstanding quarter. At the end of Q3, annualized payment volume on a trailing 30-day basis reached $41 billion. That is up more than 15 times year-over-year and nearly three times since the end of June. Enrolled financial institutions grew more than four times year-over-year to 205, and the momentum has continued. Sitting here today, as of October 30, annualized payment volume has already surpassed $58 billion. That is more than double the $23 billion we reported as of July 31 on our last earnings call, delivering over 150% sequential growth.

Speaker 1

We are also building CPN into a full-stack payments infrastructure. Treasury teams can now move USDC and EURC across subsidiaries and counterparties through the platforms they already use, including Kyriba and Tereina, which opens up integration with SAP ERP customers. We launched CPN on Arc Mainnet, making Arc the preferred settlement layer for CPN, and we extended CPN managed payments to support payments from AI agents, expanding to support businesses selling data, content, and access. We are using AI to run payment operations 24/7, supporting customer growth and reducing payment investigation times to minutes. CPN is how banks, payments companies, and businesses around the world plug into digital dollars without having to build the infrastructure themselves. Every new member brings new corridors and new counterparties, and every one of these capabilities makes the network more valuable for every member on it. That is the network effect at work.

Speaker 1

Tazapay is a major step in that strategy, and it is a company we know well. It has been a design partner to CPN since 2025. Tazapay brings USDC to the last mile with bank relationships, virtual accounts, and payout connections across APAC and emerging markets, reaching more than 100 payout markets through more than 60 bank and fintech partners. It processes more than $25 billion of annualized payment volume, and about 60% of that volume already involves stablecoins. The last mile, where a payment lands in a local currency in someone's account, is critical in delivering value in global payments. Tazapay expands CPN's footprint, deepens our fiat connectivity, and adds new capabilities for the payment providers and financial institutions building on CPN. The consideration is $400 million in Class A common stock, and we expect the transaction to close in 2027. Now let me turn to Arc.

Speaker 1

Arc is the largest platform bet we have made since USDC. It launched on September 16, and it is live and scaling. What makes Arc different starts with who operates it. For the first time, a public blockchain is operated alongside the institutions that run global finance. Arc's 11 founding validators include many of the world's leading financial companies. That is an industry first, and it tells you what kind of network Arc is. The industry is building on it. More than 100 institutions and applications, from global banks like BNY, HSBC, Société Générale, and State Street, to payments leaders like JCB, Mastercard, MoneyGram, and Visa, to the largest exchanges, to DeFi protocols like Aave, Morpho, Aerodrome, and Uniswap. Every major global crypto exchange now supports Arc across trading, custody, and wallets.

Speaker 1

Major new perpetual exchanges are launching on Arc, and Kraken's xStocks is bringing tokenized stocks and ETFs to Arc imminently. The network is real, and it is growing. As of late October, there is about $1.5 billion of USDC, cirBTC, and EURC on Arc. More than $30 billion of USDC has moved on Arc since launch, recently about $1 billion a day, and the network handles around 500,000 transactions a day, with sub-second finality and fees under $0.01 and paid in USDC. Looking ahead, Arc sectors will give each class of financial activity its own purpose-built lane on the network. A privacy sector with opt-in confidentiality and selective disclosure for institutions, a payment sector, a dedicated lane for high-volume payments, targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second, and an agent sector with verified identity, mandates, and audit trails for AI agents.

Speaker 1

These are in development, and they are what will carry Arc to mainstream scale and support the agentic economy. Our focus now is clear: scale transactions, assets, integrations, and new applications on the road to proof of stake and broad utility for the ARC token. I want to spend a moment on the agentic economy because it is coming faster than almost anyone expected. When software can do real work, it also needs to be able to get paid for that work, to pay others, and to be trusted by people and businesses it has never met. That takes money that moves instantly anywhere in any amount, and it takes identity and reputation that travel with the agent. That is what we are delivering.

Speaker 1

Over the past year, we have been building the full stack for it, wallets with budgets and spending controls, identity and reputation, discovery, and payments at machine speed down to fractions of a cent. By the first quarter of 2027, an agent built on Arc can be found, hired, paid, and trusted for the work it does. Imagine a two-person startup whose data service earns from other agents around the clock with no sign-ups and no invoices, a translation agent paid for every second of every live call it serves, a single founder running a whole business with a team of agents, each with its own budget, or an engineering agent built in Manila winning a buyer in Rotterdam it has never met on its track record alone. This is not a distant vision.

Speaker 1

Already today, over 99% of agent payments on the x402 protocol settle in USDC, and nearly 2,800 endpoints are listed for agents in Circle's Agent Marketplace. The defaults for how agents act in the economy are being set right now, and we intend to be the default. Let me turn to the stablecoin network itself, because this is the most important thing to understand about USDC right now. Stablecoin supply was steady through the quarter at about $274 billion, up 8% from a year ago, but usage tells a very different story. USDC carried 79% of all stablecoin transaction volume in the third quarter, up from 66% a year ago, on roughly 27% of the supply. USDC on-chain volume grew 49% to $13.9 trillion.

Speaker 1

Put simply, every dollar of USDC in circulation moved roughly 190 times in the quarter, about 10 times the rate of the next largest stablecoin. The money is moving, and it's moving in USDC. That matters because circulation is the stock and transaction volume is the flow. Flow is where the network effects live, in trading, in payments, in settlement, in collateral moving between venues. When businesses and markets choose a digital dollar to actually move money, they choose USDC by a wide and widening margin. Over time, that usage is what builds durable demand for holding USDC as well. That usage also runs on our liquidity infrastructure, and this is one of the most powerful parts of our story. In the third quarter, $208 billion of USDC was minted and redeemed, up 42% from a year ago, and a record quarter.

Speaker 1

That is about $2.3 billion every day, up from $1.9 billion a day in the second quarter, and more than $520 billion so far this year. This is the primary market for digital dollars working at scale, one for one, around the clock, through banking partners around the world, moving value between the banking system and the internet. It is what makes USDC the settlement infrastructure for global digital markets. USDC's primary liquidity infrastructure is the best in the world, and it compounds. Deep, instant liquidity draws more venues and institutions to settle in USDC, which brings more flow through our pipes, which deepens liquidity further. It is one of the hardest things in this industry to replicate, a real barrier to entry, and one of the most powerful parts of our network. Our other digital assets lead their categories too.

Speaker 1

EURC grew 92% year-over-year to EUR 413 million, and it remains the largest euro stablecoin in the world, now approaching EUR 500 million. USYC at $2.4 billion in assets, up 230% year-over-year, is one of the largest tokenized money market funds in the world. Let me bring this together. We are in an extraordinary moment. The financial system is moving onto the internet, and we have built the platform to meet its needs and its demands. We have the leading digital dollar. We are seeing great scaling and real traction across our newer platforms, from CPN to Arc. The utility of our network continues to grow, and we are becoming more entrenched around the world every quarter. This is the mainstream moment, when this technology goes from reaching hundreds of millions of people to billions of people and millions of businesses.

Speaker 1

Circle enters this moment from a position of extraordinary strength. We have the trust that comes from being the most widely regulated issuer in the industry. We have the deepest liquidity of any digital dollar. We have a global network of partners, institutions, and builders, and we have a platform that compounds with every new member, builder, and asset. This is the moment we need to seize, and we are investing to win in distribution, in partnerships, and in scaling our platform. Before I hand it over, I want to take a moment to thank Jeremy. Over the past five and a half years, Jeremy has been an excellent CFO and partner to me and to everyone at Circle.

Speaker 1

He helped build the financial foundation of this company, he led us through our journey to becoming a public company, and he has brought discipline, clarity, and judgment to every major decision we have made. On behalf of our board, our team, and our shareholders, thank you, Jeremy, for your tremendous service to Circle.

Speaker 2

Thank you for those kind words, Jeremy, and good morning, everyone. The last five and a half years have been the honor of a lifetime, and I could not be more proud of what we've accomplished together. While I'm excited about my next chapter, I'll leave Circle in a position of strength and with tremendous conviction in the company's future. Now, with that, let's get into the results. First, let's talk about our USDC business. Average USDC circulation was $73.3 billion, up 8% year-over-year and down 4% from Q2's high. We exited the quarter at $73.9 billion, up 1% sequentially and flat year-over-year. The reserve return rate was 3.54% for the quarter, down 61 basis points year-over-year. Sequentially, average rates rose 6 basis points following the Federal Reserve's rate hike in September.

Speaker 2

Together, that drove reserve income of $658 million, down 8% year-over-year, as higher average circulation was more than offset by the lower rate. USDC held within Circle's platform infrastructure increased 36% year-over-year to approximately $14 billion, representing 19% of circulation. Net reserve margin was 37.8%, up approximately 70 basis points year-over-year and down approximately 80 basis points from Q2. As we signaled last quarter, the sequential decline reflects the first full quarter of our Hyperliquid arrangement. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Q4 will also include a full quarter of our renewed Binance agreement. Total revenue and reserve income was $865 million, up 17% year-over-year and 23% sequentially, including $182 million of other revenue from the $242 million ARC token presale. As we noted last quarter, ARC token presale revenue is recognized as certain performance milestones are met.

Speaker 2

With the minting and delivery of ARC tokens and the public mainnet launch in Q3, we recognized approximately 75% of the total presale revenue in the quarter. Other revenue was $207 million. Excluding ARC, other revenue was $25 million, down 11% year-over-year and down approximately $8 million sequentially, as we monetized fewer blockchain integrations in the quarter compared to Q2. Revenue less distribution cost margin was 52.4%, up 13 percentage points year-over-year and 11 points sequentially, driven by the ARC token presale, which does not carry any distribution costs. Excluding the ARC token presale, RLDC margin was 39.7%, roughly flat year-over-year, and down approximately 150 basis points from Q2, reflecting the decline in net reserve margin and lower other revenue. I want to take a moment on the opportunity ARC represents and how it creates value for Circle.

Speaker 2

Blockchain networks that serve as operating systems for economic activity have the potential to deliver extraordinary value. We believe the opportunity exists to build one of the most valuable networks in the world for economic activity on the internet, and that is what we are building ARC to become. Circle is both the creator of ARC and one of its largest participants, which gives us a privileged position in the value the network creates. Let me walk through how that value accrues to Circle. ARC creates value for Circle as network activity grows. We capture that value through staking rewards, as ARC tokens are sold or distributed, and through our ARC holdings. This gives Circle unique flexibility in how and when we realize value from the network. Circle earns revenue from ARC in three ways, all recognized as other revenue. The first is staking rewards.

Speaker 2

Once ARC transitions to proof of stake, we expect to stake Circle's ARC token holdings and participate as a validator, earning ARC tokens in return. The revenue we earn depends upon the number of tokens we stake, the network's reward rate, and the price of the ARC token when received. This is expected to be Circle's primary source of recurring revenue from ARC, and we expect it to build over time. The second is token sales. We may sell ARC tokens selectively to advance the network's development. Because there are no associated costs, token sale proceeds flow directly to the bottom line. The third is ecosystem incentives. ARC tokens will be used to incentivize developers, partners, and broader participation in the network.

Speaker 2

As ecosystem incentives are distributed, we recognize their market value in other revenue, with an offsetting entry in other distribution costs, which recognizes the fact that we have given these tokens away. Lastly, Circle's ARC holdings, our 25% allocation, represent value that is not reflected in our financial statements under GAAP. That value is recognized only as tokens are sold or distributed, and any appreciation in the network is not reflected in our reported results until then. Now, returning to the quarter, here it is from top to bottom. Starting from the $865 million of total revenue and reserve income I covered earlier, less $412 million of distribution transaction and other costs, RLDC was $453 million, up 55% year-over-year.

Speaker 2

Adjusted operating expenses were $139 million, up 13% year-over-year, driven by continued investment in infrastructure to support Arc and AI, and in marketing, including our partnership with Chelsea Football Club. Sequentially, adjusted operating expenses decreased by approximately $8 million, or 5%, largely driven by non-recurring costs in Q2. That brings adjusted EBITDA to $317 million, up 85% year-over-year, including the ARC token pre-sale. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 70%, or 50% excluding ARC. Turning to guidance. Starting with other revenue, we are maintaining our full-year guidance of $310 million-$330 million. That includes the $182 million of ARC token pre-sale revenue we recognized in Q3, and $130 million-$150 million from the remainder of our products. With only one blockchain integration in Q3, but several expected in Q4, we expect other revenue, excluding ARC, to step up in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2

Turning to RLDC margin, we are reaffirming our full-year range of 41.7%-43.7%. Excluding ARC revenue, we expect full-year RLDC margin to come in near the midpoint of our original guidance range of 38%-40%. As I mentioned earlier, Q4 will be the first full quarter reflecting both our Hyperliquid arrangement and our renewed Binance partnership. These agreements are investments in distribution, placing USDC at the center of two of the most important venues in digital assets, and are designed to grow USDC circulation and RLDC dollars over time. On adjusted operating expenses, we continue trending towards the high end of our original $570 million-$585 million range. Turning to USDC circulation, our multi-year through-cycle framework is unchanged. We remain confident in the long-term opportunity, while recognizing that growth will not follow a straight line.

Speaker 2

As we approach the end of 2026, every layer of our platform is now live, from USDC to CPN to Arc. USDC carries nearly 80% of stablecoin transaction volume, and GENIUS is about to make regulated digital dollars a core part of the financial system. CPN has grown more than 15 times in a year, and Arc has created a $3 billion token asset and is live on mainnet with a world-class validator set and a myriad of builders. We've built Circle for this moment, and we have the financial capability to lean into it. With that, I'll turn it back over to Scott to start Q&A.

Operator

Thanks, Jeremy. We'll start Q&A again with a few questions that we collected from our retail shareholders. Our first question comes from Luffy, who has a question about CPN. CPN already supports cross-border payments into Hong Kong. If Circle were licensed to issue USDC in Hong Kong, what's the first service your local team would want to offer businesses that it can't offer today?

Speaker 1

Thanks for the question, Luffy. I think it is a great question. I think a couple things that we have talked about in the past. The first is that Asia remains, I think, one of the most significant markets in the world for our platform. USDC demand, CPN, by far, as you noted in your question, driving significant volumes as cross-border settlement in Asia is a really major part of what we see. Even interesting, Arc and what is happening with Arc, we are seeing a lot of that coming out of Asia. Asia is just overwhelmingly, I think, the largest market that we see activity in. Now, I think specific to the question, we are very focused on how we can bring the advantages of USDC more deeply into Hong Kong.

Speaker 1

I think one thing that ties back to one of the comments I made earlier is, we already provide institutional-grade primary liquidity for USDC in Hong Kong. That liquidity infrastructure I talked about earlier, we work with global systemically important banks that provide access to USDC to institutions in Hong Kong, and that is critical. The infrastructure for cross-border, the infrastructure for digital asset market participation, and the like, we have some foundations there. We are engaged with the Hong Kong government and very much believe that their stablecoin regime, which creates a framework for foreign-issued stablecoins to be available in their market, is one that we will be successful entering.

Speaker 1

I think, tying back to my earlier comments as well, with GENIUS Act going effective in January, major central banks around the world have been waiting for that moment themselves, because then they can essentially have regulatory reciprocity and have an understanding of the like-for-like regime. What does that mean for us? It means, look, merchants, sellers, businesses, and investors out of Hong Kong interact with the dollar financial system already today on a huge scale, and we believe that digital dollars, such as USDC, and payment networks such as CPN, and blockchain infrastructure such as Arc, all of those present a tremendous opportunity for that connectivity between essentially Greater China and the rest of the world that is going to interact over this internet financial system. We believe that it presents for us one of the largest market opportunities in the world.

Operator

All right. Our second question is from Rachel, on the Say platform, who asks, "Revenue and profitability has not kept pace with the adoption of USDC. What milestones should investors watch over the next 12-18 months to assess Circle's ability to grow earnings beyond interest income? When do you expect non-interest revenue to become a meaningful contributor?

Speaker 1

I'll take that. Looking just at this quarter, we had a record amount of other revenue. We were monetizing Arc and obviously monetizing other parts of the platform. As we look forward, with CPN scaling, as we talked about this quarter, and a focus on monetization with the integration of more monetization and product capabilities into CPN through the acquisition of Tazapay, with the transition of Arc to a proof-of-stake network and the broader utility for ARC token, and all of the monetization opportunities that that presents, all of those combined are, I think, very meaningful and we believe will contribute to, I think, strong continued diversification in the revenue stream. We're building this multifaceted, multi-pillar platform. These other platform investments have been investments, and now they're starting to generate real income and returns for us, as shown even in this quarter's results.

Speaker 2

I'd just add, we're not commenting at this time on our other revenue outlook for the financial year 2027. We'll do that at our next earnings when we give more formal guidance.

Operator

All right. Our third and final retail question is from Jessica, also from Say, who asks, "As competition from other stablecoins increases, what is your strategy for returning USDC circulation to sustained growth while protecting margins? How does management expect the balance between USDC growth, partner incentives, and profitability to evolve in the near future?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I'll take the first part of that, and maybe Jeremy can also address it. A few things, and things that we've been saying consistently. We are absolutely going to continue to lean into distribution. We are at a really critical moment. In digital asset markets, we're winning distribution partnerships with the biggest, most important platforms in the world. Those drive liquidity, those drive network effects, and those drive broader adoption for what we do. The second, and I think this is important on competition, I think, a recently launched stablecoin is doing maybe $5 million a day of on-chain transaction volume, compared to our tens of billions, or maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars of daily trading volume versus, again, sometimes our nearly $10 billion in trading volume.

Speaker 1

Liquidity and the infrastructure we have is a huge competitive advantage, and by building these distribution partnerships that we are, by building these banking and financial institution partnerships that we are, we strengthen that network and we strengthen those network effects. Those are critical to winning and growing significantly over time. I think the other piece is that the investment in this infrastructure and the balance between what effectively is incentives for partners versus effectively what becomes drivers for broad-based circulation is an interesting trade-off that we're going to see play over time. I think we're in the early innings of the growth in stablecoin. I think ultimately, we see this as a multi-trillion dollar market, and we want to make sure in a winner-take-most structure, we're the most of the most.

Speaker 2

I'd add on to that, as Jeremy said, look, we're building for the long term. We and others are incredibly optimistic about the long-term potential of stablecoins and for more and more of the world's economic activity to take place using these new technologies. Now, we're building to win that with distribution and liquidity, as Jeremy said. The point I want to make is, more and more people are already choosing to use USDC over any other stablecoin. That is growing, right? USDC transaction volume grew 49% year-over-year, and share grew to 79% of all stablecoin on-chain transaction volume. Now, we're building for that long term, and as that activity grows, more people are using USDC, and we expect that to pull through into circulation growth over the longer term.

Operator

Thanks, guys. That's great. Now, before I turn it over to the moderator, I want to thank Luffy, Rachel, Jessica, and everyone else who submitted questions this quarter. With that, I'm going to pass it over to Janice, who will begin the live Q&A.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Scott. To kick off our analyst Q&A, we have Pete Christiansen from Citi.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Hi, Jeremy. Great to be here. Very exciting trends. Jeremy Fox-Geen, best of luck in the next chapter. Jeremy Allaire, at the Arc launch, you stated that the spectacle era of crypto is over, and that we are entering a period where blockchain increasingly fades into the background as a foundational layer for financial infrastructure. I guess if we look across Circle's investments across USDC, CPN, Arc, Agent Stack, enterprise partnerships, so have you. Where do you think the industry is still furthest from that vision, and what is the single biggest bottleneck that Circle is spending the most time and resources trying to solve right now?

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is a great question. I think a lot of times, there is sort of a similar question, sort of like, what does it take for all of these kind of mainstream utility applications to come online? I think the good news is, every single quarter, we just see more and more evidence of that. I mean, if you just look at the companies that are actively building on Arc, and you just go a year before or a year before that and just think about the incredible change, it is phenomenal. The world's leading banks, the world's leading capital markets firms, the world's leading payments firms, asset management firms, like, this is the core of the mainstream of the financial system, and they are all leaning in. They are operating the infrastructure, they are building on the infrastructure, they are building products for the infrastructure. That is a sea change.

Speaker 1

Now, that is the beginning, obviously, of a scaling out. As I started at the beginning of the call, that is the beginning of this sort of mainstream moment. So what have we been focused on? Getting the infrastructure right, making sure that digital dollars are foundational, regulated forms of money in the U.S. and global financial system. Check. Making sure you have got the infrastructure designed in a purpose-built way for traditional financial firms with the prudential standards, safety standards, features, and scalability, and economic model to work for them. That is what we have been building now for two years with Arc. Check. Right?

Speaker 1

Abstracting away the complexity of all this so that if you want to plug in and move value around, you want to not have to worry about all of the underlying compliance and blockchains and custody and fiat infrastructure and be able to move money seamlessly, that is what we have been building with CPN. Check. Every single thing we are doing is building for enabling that. In the quarter, it was amazing. I mean, we did not talk about some of this, but Lloyds Bank settling cross-border payments with USDC, Visa connecting their global money movement platform, Visa Direct, to be funded in USDC, Walmart's finance subsidiary, OnePay, adding support for USDC, Samsung putting USDC in all of their mobile phones and their mobile wallets. These are big milestones that, again, even when we went public a year and a half ago, would have been watershed moments.

Speaker 1

These are happening every week, every month, lots of these things happening. I think we're seeing it. I'm very encouraged by it.

Speaker 2

All right, Zach. Those are illustrations of the network effects we talk about. We've built the broadest distribution of any U.S. dollar stablecoin. We've built the deepest liquidity, secondary and primary, of any U.S. dollar stablecoin. That takes time to build, it costs money to build, and we've been investing and building in this for years, and I think that's starting to show fruit as the market turns. People are building on our infrastructure, and we are incredibly well-positioned for future growth.

Speaker 1

One last comment on this, Pete, which I think is helpful is, this whole tokenization phenomenon, which is really about taking financial contracts that exist in the existing financial system and putting them on chain, enabling them to get the benefits of on-chain infrastructure, liquidity, trading, and innovation, that's happening with speed. I mean, we're seeing announcements, and we've seen regulatory rulemaking on this, and we're seeing a lot of things progressing, and that is a kind of a new chapter in digital assets. We talked last quarter about how much of the trading volume of digital assets had shifted into these real-world assets. I think that's going to be a very big story, and that's something that you'll see a huge amount from Circle around as we go forward on Arc and in coordination with what we do with our digital assets business as well.

Speaker 1

Thanks for the question, Pete.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from James Yaro at Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 5

Good morning, and thanks for taking the question. Jeremy, it has been great working with you. Good luck in your next role.

Speaker 1

Thank you, James.

Speaker 5

I wanted to touch on the Binance partnership. Could you speak to the drivers of how the updated partnership was structured, as well as any detail on the economics to the degree that you are willing to comment on that? Finally, do any of the recent events at Binance impact your partnership at all?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Great question. I mean, I do not think we break out the details on the economics on the partnership. I think at a high level, it is a marketing and distribution and product relationship. They have a strong economic incentive to market, distribute, and integrate USDC as a primary digital dollar across their platform, and we are seeing that happen, which is great. Jeremy Fox-Geen can comment as well, just overall how we think about that in the mix. I think he had some comments about that as we look forward. But I think having a platform with several hundred million people in the most important critical markets, putting USDC front and center is a tremendous opportunity for us. We are very excited about what that can be and how that will develop and transpire.

Speaker 1

I think on the question, obviously, we are in an environment right now where cyberattacks, AI-based cyberattacks, both by criminals, by nation-states, by others, are happening with an extraordinary accelerating velocity, and I think we are very, very sensitive about that. I am sure everyone who is on the call is as well. We are seeing that, and I think in the digital asset space, because digital assets themselves are bearer assets, or some of them can be used as bearer assets, it makes it very attractive to hostile actors. I think the breach that happened last week is obviously a huge number. I think the execution of how that was handled by Circle, by law enforcement, and by actors across the industry was actually very, very strong, and so I think that was a positive thing. Look, I think Binance remains an extraordinarily powerful platform.

Speaker 1

Their liquidity distribution reach remains incredibly strong. While they have had some pressure following that with people withdrawing, actually just in the last 24 hours, we have seen $2.5 billion of net deposits into Binance. I think there is a moment, and then people are actually returning. Obviously, we are going to watch all of that very closely. James, we saw your note that you put out just sort of generally, how does this affect how regulators, institutions, others think about this? Obviously, we are highly attuned to that. I do think that global regulators are absolutely going to continue to put further scrutiny on cyber, on security infrastructure, not just in digital asset exchanges, but for every FI, including Goldman Sachs, as you know.

Speaker 1

It is just a very, very different era on that, and I think we will see more regulation around that, because the stakes are really very high.

Speaker 2

James, I would add some comments on the economics in addition to what Jeremy said. At the strategic level, we have talked many times about how we want to incentivize the most important platforms in the digital asset ecosystem to lean heavily into USDC, right? You see that with Coinbase as our founding distribution partner and founding partner of ours, increasingly with Hyperliquid, with Binance, and with others. We want these companies to be very incented to lean in, because we believe, and history has shown, that the greater the activity on those platforms, the greater the activity and growth of the USDC ecosystem overall, i.e., in USDC that is not held within those highly incented platform infrastructures. We have seen that prove out over time, and we are confident that that will continue to prove out and accelerate into the future.

Speaker 2

On the economic specifics, while we have not called out the details of the Binance agreement specifically, I did say in my comments on guidance that the full year margin, excluding the ARC token pre-sale, was trending towards the middle of the original range we gave at the beginning of the year. You can do the kind of backward math from that, and you will see the step-down that we anticipate in Q4 due to the full quarter of the Binance incentive arrangement being recognized. Our next question comes from Owen Lau at Clear Street.

Speaker 6

Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I apologize for my camera. It is not working in the morning. First of all, Jeremy, best wishes.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 6

to your next step. My question is on agentic commerce. One of the big focus recently was AI personal assistants such as Muse and Instinct. It looks like some of the AI personal assistant use traditional rail, and some other use blockchain rail for payments. Could you please add more color on how Circle work with these personal assistant and endpoints to drive adoption?

Speaker 1

It's a great question, Owen. A couple things on this. I think, one is that we are still in the very early stages of how agents hold value, transact, and what they transact for. I think this very first wave of consumer agents that do shopping for you or things like that, connection to the card products and existing card rails is a very natural first step. I think our view is twofold.

Speaker 1

I think one is that the order of magnitude shift in agentic payments and agentic economic activity happens when agents are paying other agents, where the work is being conducted across agents, where the agents themselves become economic actors, and the nature of the value exchange is very, very different and potentially much smaller transactions, different structures of transactions that involve effectively contracts between the agents and deals that the agents make with each other that need to be enforced programmatically with things like smart contracts. There's a huge shift that is going to unfold, and we are building that stack. We are building an end-to-end stack for that.

Speaker 1

In fact, because we have some of the very best fiat interoperability infrastructure in the world, you can expect us to also ensure that the agents that people build on Arc and the agents that people integrate with have that fiat interoperability as well. That's something that we're very specifically attuned to. What I would also say it's really exciting is the network effects that already exist for our stack and our standards and USDC are already playing out. For example, the new agent wallet that Stripe is making available is something that actually integrates into, I think, the Instinct agent, personal agent. Actually, the way it works is, when you fund it actually holds the balances in USDC, and it's in a digital wallet. The USDC can either be spent through a card transaction or it can be spent directly otherwise.

Speaker 1

There's some really great technical posts from the team that built it that came out last week that talk about it. I think, essentially, on-chain money and the flexibility of that as a stored value mechanism for agents to be able to kind of move either agent to agent with these high-speed transactions or kind of settle it into a legacy card transaction is going to be a really powerful structure. In fact, again, it gets to the strength of our network today. The biggest card networks in the world take settlement in USDC. If you need to settle with them, then those pipes are already in place. Something like a Link wallet or Link agent wallet can both settle with the card networks with USDC and can make direct transactions and use those on-chain with USDC.

Speaker 1

We're finding penetration into this world in a lot of different ways. Thanks for the question.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from Ed Engel at Compass Point.

Speaker 7

Hi, thanks for taking my question. It looks like your distribution costs declined this quarter despite Coinbase revenue increasing with the Hyperliquid agreement. Can you explain what's driving the decline in non-Coinbase distribution costs? As a quick one, is there any upfront costs associated with the Binance renewal?

Speaker 2

So I'll take those. There are no upfront costs associated with the Binance agreement. We don't comment specifically on the puts and takes that we've talked about in general terms many times in each of our different distribution agreements. We have many of them, and some of them ebb and flow with different amounts of stock and different amounts of incentive through any quarter. What you saw, though, defining net reserve margin this quarter, we talked about at the beginning, was the sequential decline in margin, which is largely due to the Hyperliquid agreement, which balances are on Coinbase. You can kind of work through the math on that one. Now we have a question from Cassie Chan at Wells Fargo. Cassie, if you could please unmute your machine. We're just standing by for audio from Cassie. All right, great.

Speaker 3

We're going to move on then to John Todaro from Needham.

Speaker 3

Are you there, John?

Speaker 8

Oh, hey, guys. Yes, thanks for taking my question. Appreciate you fielding it. I just wanted to go back to James' question earlier. From our standpoint, we see some of these hacking risks, especially driven by AI, as the biggest concern for on-chain digital assets in 2027. Is this an industry wake-up call, and are there consortiums you guys can develop? I'm just wondering, what steps, if additional, can the industry take to try and get a better handle on this? You guys are kind of less directly involved, but if you start seeing customers pull more assets from exchanges, obviously impacts these partnerships around USDC. There is some tie with Circle. Just wondering if, Jeremy, if you see any kind of steps-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Speaker 8

the industry can take.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, look, the answer is absolutely yes. I will say a few things on this. So one is, this has been a rapidly evolving environment now for some time. I would say you need to have There is sort of the infrastructure itself, which I will come back to, and then there is essentially what I will broadly call industry response, and how organized and official that industry response is. Then really critically is government and law enforcement response. Essentially getting those all to work together is really the key. So what does that mean? At the infrastructure level, for asset issuers like Circle to ensure that we have the infrastructure to be responsive in emergencies and with coordination with law enforcement to be able to stop thieves in their tracks. That is one critical thing. It goes deeper than that.

Speaker 1

Again, I will have a little bit more of a comment there in a second. The second is on the industry response side, essentially it is the leading infrastructure firms, the leading on-chain protocols, the leading blockchains, the leading exchanges, and the leading custodians having essentially real-time monitoring and real-time communications channels for cyber-related incidents, and having those also in coordination with the forensics and analytics and other providers. We are seeing that happen. So we are seeing that kind of organization start to exist, and I think you will probably see some of that more formalized emerge as well. On the government side, I mean, I think governments needing to deal with cyber response on AI swarms and AI threats is obviously the single biggest issue facing most advanced and any country in the world. We are seeing that play out on a daily basis.

Speaker 1

Those responses are not just for financial integrity, they are with critical infrastructure, many, many other things, as you know. But I think the government response is getting more rapid, and we are seeing that now. We are seeing that when incidents are happening, our ability to work and coordinate with the top global law enforcement is stronger than ever. So those are all, I think, important things. But I do think there is another issue here, and it relates to actually Arc, and let me tell you why. A blockchain infrastructure that is designed with prudential safety in mind, that is operated by a known set of actors whose infrastructure are held to high standards of compliance and information security, that is how Arc is designed.

Speaker 1

And building an infrastructure that can, in fact, provide greater assurances around operating safety than can a permissionless infrastructure where you don't know who the actors are and where there are certain actions you can't take. That is a trade space that is going to exist. As major financial institutions think about, "Where am I going to put my assets? Where am I going to deploy code that runs smart contracts, that enables value exchange or other activities?" They are absolutely going to be asking, "Are the networks and operating systems I'm deploying on held to these very high standards?" It's like the early days of cloud. Cloud early on, the CIA wasn't going to run their stuff on it, or major banks weren't going to run their stuff on it, and eventually the standards got strong enough.

Speaker 1

We're going to go through that change in blockchain infrastructure itself. That is one of the major reasons why Arc is designed and operates the way it does, and we think it will be in a better position to deal with the kinds of security and emergency response vectors that may be needed to make this mainstream infrastructure.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from Joe Vafi at Canaccord.

Speaker 9

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for the question. JFG, a pleasure. Best of luck on your next endeavor. Hopefully our paths cross again.

Speaker 1

I look forward to it.

Speaker 9

Yeah, thank you, Jeremy Allaire. Maybe we drill down on GENIUS a little bit more. I know you mentioned some of the treasury management integrations and the like. Just how aware do you think Fortune 500, Global 2000s are of this opportunity to integrate stablecoins? How you see this kind of play out a little bit here after GENIUS is enacted? Just kind of looking for maybe your views of how this evolves over the next six to 12 months.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, look, obviously, I led the call with thinking around this. We just think that this is just such a pivotal moment. And if you are a large global company, if you are a public company, if you are a treasurer or a CFO of a public company, or you run a regulated financial institution, you are not going to start building on digital dollars and weaving them into your infrastructure, even if they're better, faster, cheaper, even if they have new innovation and utility, until they are codified into the financial system. I cannot understate how significant of a milestone that is. Now, what's interesting is that there are other kind of bodies of work that are happening in parallel.

Speaker 1

FASB, which sets obviously critical accounting standards, is very near finalizing their standards for the accounting treatment of payment stablecoins that would be issued and regulated under GENIUS, and it creates a framework for providing that these are cash or cash equivalent instruments. That is a very big deal. That is a key moment as well. These things are kind of aligning so that treasurers can look at this for the merits of the technology, the merits of these very safe, full reserve instruments, the ability for them to work globally. We are already seeing those conversations start. Every quarter, there's more and more really interesting both partnerships and major companies that are taking this on.

Speaker 1

I think as we come into 2027, infrastructure, policy, liquidity, integration with global banks globally, all of these things are turning on, and it really is, I think, going to be an exciting year for mainstream companies that are starting to integrate this far, far more across their operations. It is a growing part of our business development efforts on a global basis as well.

Speaker 2

All right, build a little on that. Talking to a lot of CFOs and treasurers of the companies you are referring to, necessary things to happen before CFOs and treasurers will use digital dollars. Jeremy Allaire mentioned several of them. Codification into law, bringing digital dollars into the financial system, clear rules for accounting and tax. The first has happened. Those are in the works. Very importantly, integration into the existing systems that treasurers use today, right? We talked about integration into software that works with SAP, treasury management systems. CFOs don't want to have to build parallel workflows to control digital assets in order to reap the benefits of those new technologies, not unless their business case is a business imperative to do so, and we've seen that with sort of global payout use cases where people are early adopting building on stablecoins.

Speaker 2

It's these necessary integrations that make it easier for people to reap these benefits, and all of these integrations are now being built and are being put in place. We're really optimistic about the future for this. Our final question of the morning comes from Andrew Jeffrey from William Blair.

Speaker 10

Hi, good morning. Appreciate you squeezing me in here. Very helpful, I think, the slide on Arc monetization. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that ties into CPN. We've seen some terrific annualized volume improvements on CPN. Can you talk about the economic and monetary model on CPN and sort of how it will sort of help turn that flywheel with the rest of the USDC ecosystem, and perhaps also comment on timing for Arc to move to proof of stake?

Speaker 1

Sure. Yeah, a couple of things. I think, and I touched on this in my comments as well. You know, CPN itself, obviously, we're very, very pleased with the. Just since we last talked to you guys live at the end of July to now, we 150% growth in annualized run rate volume, which is really phenomenal. We're very excited about the progress that's happening there. As we go forward, now that Arc is live, what you would expect is that the traffic of CPN and the settlement volumes of CPN, we will be moving more and more onto Arc. That's really great because it has multiple effects. It drives traffic and value, and it drives effectively fee revenue into Arc and all the validators on Arc.

Speaker 1

It drives all the counterparties, the hundreds of financial institutions who are on CPN, to adopt Arc as a primary infrastructure for settlements, which then cascades across other use cases and applications that those payments firms, those financial institutions, those banks might use. It sort of makes Arc operations ready across this ecosystem and this rapidly scaling ecosystem, which is great. There's sort of second-order effects in terms of other utility that might be brought to Arc beyond just the CPN traffic. Then obviously, CPN itself is a primary utility for USDC and EURC settlement, is sort of primary utility from CPN. That's intrinsic demand that exists there. I would say finally, Arc is bringing forward new novel things. With Arc, we launched something called StableFX, which is essentially a real-time FX, atomically swappable FX protocol. It runs on Arc.

Speaker 1

It uses not just Circle stablecoins, it uses around a dozen other currency stablecoins. As we get the liquidity on that stood up, that is an Arc infrastructure that then becomes, think of it as like a backbone for how you can drive towards even more efficient, capital-efficient, and speed and cost-efficient real-time FX inside of CPN itself. These puzzle pieces fit together in these different ways. StableFX has its own fee revenue model as well, sitting on top of Arc, et cetera. Those are how some of these pieces fit together.

Speaker 2

Jeremy's talked about how those network flywheels power each other, and how Arc and CPN and USDC, each of them is a network business with a network flywheel, all of which reinforce each other. Part of your question, though, was about sort of the revenue model of CPN specifically. Again, we're not commenting on kind of 2027 guidance just yet. But looking back to what we said last quarter, we are now beginning to monetize CPN, and this is a priority for us going forward. We have started to monetize some of the CPN flows, and that is going to grow over time.

Speaker 2

Next year as well, with the closing of the Tazapay acquisition and the integration of Taza into CPN overall, we expect to see material revenue from CPN in 2027, and we will be talking about that more at our next earnings call when we give other revenue guidance for the year.

Speaker 1

Two final thoughts on this that actually are important to land for everyone here. I think one is, our general philosophy is that on-chain infrastructure, digital dollars, stablecoin money, the protocols we build around it, that on-chain infrastructure will drive the cost, the marginal cost of storing and moving value down considerably from where it is. I think anyone who is taking a comp and saying, "Hey, this payments company makes 10 to 15 basis points," or, "This payments company makes 20 to 30 basis points," that is the wrong comps.

Speaker 2

Or 2%.

Speaker 1

Or 2%, or whatever it is. That is the wrong comp. When this achieves scale, it is going to have enormous velocity, and the unit costs are going to be much, much lower. That is a benefit to people and businesses and households, et cetera, around the world. That is what we are shooting for. We are not shooting to, let us go repeat the margin structure of the existing payments industry. This is about compressing it, compressing it materially, and that is what we are shooting for. When you think about your own modeling for what that looks like, we want these big numbers to be very, very big, with huge network effects and huge velocity, with very, very low unit costs. That is what this looks like. That is what we are doing. So, it is an important thing to land.

Speaker 1

The second is, in addition to focusing on monetization, we are also very focused on ensuring that this isn't just essentially fiat to fiat, where the money comes in and goes out. We want those balances to be sticky. We want to make sure that the merchants, that the businesses, that the people on the ends of these networks are going to store value in digital dollars or digital euros or other digital assets. We want them to stay sticky. The general utility of the money itself and of the value that people get out of it as working capital, as investable capital, as capital that can be borrowed and lent, et cetera, that's also really critical. We're focused on monetization. We're also very focused on growing the balances that the nodes on the network hold.

Speaker 1

I think the starting point has been what people call the stablecoin sandwich. "Hey, I've got fiat in an account here, and I want to give it to fiat in an account there," and you're kind of moving it out. In fact, if you look at the record minting and redemption volume, 208 billion in the quarter, that reflects the fact that these pipes work for settlement. People are moving value in and out with great speed and efficiency. It does work that way. Strategically, we obviously want to drive costs down, unit costs of payments down, and we want to grow balances and increase the general utility of that money. So, that's just philosophically how we look at it and strategically how we're aligned. Thank you for the question. I think with that, we're going to wrap up today's earnings call.

Speaker 1

Thanks for all the great questions and for tuning in, and we'll see you soon.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

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