coindesk.com
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.