Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: jk
Circle (stock code: CRCL), the worlds leading stablecoin issuer, was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, becoming the first company in the stablecoin field to successfully IPO. As the leader in the stablecoin track, Circle has the status of US compliance, the first listing, and a status similar to Coinbase. This listing naturally attracted great attention from traditional financial and Web3 investors, and is also regarded as an important milestone for the crypto financial infrastructure to fully move towards the mainstream capital market.
The stock price soared nearly 170% on the first day, and the current market value exceeded US$21 billion
Circle’s stock price trend can be summed up in four words: it keeps rising.
Circle publicly issued 34 million common shares at an issue price of $31 per share , raising nearly $1.1 billion. On the first day of listing, CRCL opened at $69, and triggered trading suspensions several times during the day due to volatile fluctuations, rising to $103.75 at its highest, and finally closed at $83.23, an increase of 168%. Based on the closing price of the transaction, Circles market value reached $18.4 billion; if dilutive interests such as options and warrants are included, the total valuation can reach $21.4 billion.
On Friday, CRCLs stock price continued to rise, closing at $107.7 on Friday and trading at $111.15 after hours, up about 29.4% from the previous trading day. At this time, Circles market value has reached about $21.6 billion.
The worlds second largest stablecoin issuer, USDCs market value exceeds $60 billion
Circle was founded in 2013 and initially focused on cross-border fiat payment business . Its main products are USDC, a stablecoin anchored to the US dollar, and EUDC, anchored to the euro. As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, the total market value of USDC was US$59.976 billion, accounting for about 29% of the global stablecoin market share, second only to Tethers USDT (market value of about US$153.8 billion).
Circle earns risk-free interest income by investing the users deposited US dollar reserves in safe assets such as short-term US Treasury bonds and cash, and uses this to support the 1: 1 exchange mechanism of USDC. According to the prospectus, Circle will realize a total revenue of US$1.676 billion in 2024, of which about 99% is reserve interest income.
It is worth noting that Circles revenue is highly dependent on interest rates, with about 99% of its revenue coming from reserve interest. Once interest rates fall, its profitability may be affected.
Solid financial performance and continued improvement in profitability
In recent years, Circles revenue and profitability have steadily increased. From 2022 to 2024, Circles revenue was $772 million, $1.45 billion, and $1.676 billion, respectively; net profit from continuing operations was -$760 million, $271 million, and $157 million, respectively. In the first quarter of 2025, the companys revenue was $579 million, a year-on-year increase of 58.6% ; profit from continuing operations was $92.94 million, and net profit was $64.79 million.
The adjusted EBITDA (Non-GAAP) indicator shows that Circle will achieve US$96.28 million, US$395 million and US$285 million in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively, and US$122 million in the first quarter of 2025, an increase of nearly 60% over the same period last year.
However, the company is also facing pressure from rising distribution costs, especially as revenue sharing with strategic partners such as Coinbase has increased significantly.
From “Alipay of America” to a full-link stablecoin ecosystem operator
In the early days, Circle was known as the American version of Alipay for its Circle Pay product. Since then, it has gradually shifted to a financial infrastructure layout centered on stablecoins. In 2018, Circle and Coinbase jointly established Centre Consortium and jointly launched USDC. In August 2023, Circle spent approximately US$209.9 million to repurchase Coinbases 50% stake in Centre and completely regain control of USDC. The transaction was completed with 8.4 million shares of Circle common stock. Centre then became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Circle and was dissolved at the end of the year. The relevant assets were integrated into the Circle system.
During its long-term development, Circle has received multiple rounds of capital support from investors including IDG Capital, Accel, General Catalyst, Breyer Capital, Baidu, Wanxiang, Everbright Holdings, CICC, and Silver Lake Founding Partners.
Industry perspective: Crypto financial infrastructure fully enters the capital market
Circles listing coincides with a strong rebound in the crypto market. Driven by the Trump administrations more friendly stance toward the crypto industry, Bitcoin recently broke through a record high of $110,000, and the share prices of related companies such as Coinbase, Robinhood, and Galaxy Digital rose sharply. Circles successful listing will bring two major changes to the stablecoin market and even the compliant crypto market:
As a listed company, Circle is required to regularly and thoroughly disclose the composition of its reserves (such as the combination of U.S. bonds and cash specified in the prospectus), audit results, and core financial details (such as 99% of its revenue comes from interest on reserves). This unprecedented transparency standard will create strong industry pressure, forcing other stablecoin issuers, especially those whose operations are not transparent enough, to improve the level of information disclosure and squeeze the space for black box operations.
In terms of financial system integration, Circles listing on the New York Stock Exchange has opened up an important channel for traditional capital to enter the stablecoin track. Traditionally relatively conservative large institutional investors such as pension funds and index funds can now indirectly allocate stablecoin infrastructure tracks by purchasing CRCL shares, avoiding the complex thresholds and high regulatory risks of direct investment in cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the strong credibility endorsement brought by the listing will greatly increase the acceptance and trust of institutions in USDC as trusted on-chain cash, and promote more traditional financial institutions to adopt USDC as a key bridge asset for innovative scenarios such as cross-border settlement, treasury bond tokenization, and real-time payment.
Next week Circle will enter its second week since its listing, and Odaily will continue to track price trends for you.
