Investment bank William Blair reiterated its outperform rating on Circle (CRCL) stock after the stablecoin issuer’s third-quarter results beat the bank’s and Wall Street’s estimates.
The stock was down 3.9% in pre-market trading Wednesday, around $94.50.
Analyst Andrew Jeffrey continues to view USDC as the likely stablecoin standard, placing Circle at the center of the programmable currency revolution.
Although the muted market reaction reflects Circle’s premium valuation and limited near-term catalysts, the analyst recommends investors take advantage of any stock weakness to build positions, arguing that rival proprietary stablecoins will struggle to match the size and liquidity of USDC.
Jeffrey highlighted the continued progress of Circle’s infrastructure initiatives, including its orchestration layer, CPN, and its Layer 1 blockchain, Arc, both of which have gained traction as the company has added ecosystem participants and advanced tokenization capabilities.
Arc now has 100 participants, with plans for a mainnet launch in 2026 and mining a native token, the report said.
Transaction volume increased sharply, with total payment volume (TPV) over the last 12 months increasing 101-fold to $3.4 billion annualized, fueling higher fees.
Circle now expects transaction revenue of $90 million to $100 million for 2025, above previous forecasts of $75 million to $85 million, growth that William Blair sees as key to increasing and diversifying revenue.
