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 premarket trading on 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 weak market response reflects Circle’s premium valuation and limited near-term catalysts, the analyst recommends that investors use any weakness in the stock to build positions, arguing that rival proprietary stablecoins will struggle to match the scale and liquidity of USDC.
Jeffrey highlighted steady progress in Circle’s infrastructure initiatives, including its orchestration layer, CPN, and its layer 1 blockchain, Arc, both of which have gained traction as the company added ecosystem participants and advanced tokenization capabilities.
Arc now has 100 participants, with plans for a mainnet debut in 2026 and exploration of a native token, the report notes.
Transaction volume increased significantly, with trailing 12-month total payment volume (TPV) increasing 101-fold to an annualized $3.4 billion, driving higher fees.
Circle now expects 2025 transaction revenue of $90 million to $100 million, up from a previous forecast of $75 million to $85 million, growth William Blair sees as key to scaling and diversifying revenue.
