Circle公布2026年二季度业绩，USDC规模增长但收入与费用结构呈混合信号

Our AI knew it: This high-conviction medtech just jumped 27%+ on blowout earnings
Introduction & Market Context
Circle Internet Financial presented its second-quarter 2026 results on August 5, revealing strong operational momentum for its USDC stablecoin network even as investors responded cautiously to the company’s increased spending and reliance on future growth initiatives. The presentation highlighted $73.3 billion in USDC circulation, up 19% year-over-year, alongside major institutional partnerships including DTCC and BlackRock ahead of the September 16 launch of its Arc blockchain network.
Despite meeting Wall Street’s adjusted earnings forecast of $0.18 per share on revenue and reserve income of $701 million, shares fell 4.03% in premarket trading to $60.70, suggesting market participants focused on declining reserve returns and execution risk rather than the company’s expanding network scale and regulatory achievements.
The quarter marked a pivotal transition for Circle, with the July 2026 approval of its OCC Trust Charter establishing federal oversight and the company positioning Arc as a potential growth driver comparable to USDC itself. The presentation emphasized Circle’s evolution from a reserve-income business model toward a diversified platform serving institutional finance.
Quarterly Performance Highlights
Circle’s second-quarter financial results demonstrated resilience in a challenging digital asset environment, with total revenue and reserve income reaching $701 million, up 7% year-over-year. The company reported adjusted EBITDA of $143 million, representing 8% growth from the prior year, though the adjusted EBITDA margin compressed to 50% from 53% a year earlier.
As illustrated in the following comprehensive quarterly overview, the company achieved significant growth across multiple dimensions:
The presentation highlighted that USDC circulation grew 19% year-over-year to $73.3 billion as of June 30, 2026, with average quarterly circulation reaching an all-time high. This growth occurred despite a roughly 40% decline in broader digital asset market capitalization, underscoring USDC’s increasing adoption for payments, settlement and institutional use cases beyond speculative trading.
Circle’s revenue less distribution cost (RLDC) margin expanded to 41.2%, up approximately 3 percentage points from the prior year, reflecting improved operational efficiency. However, the reserve return rate declined to 3.48% from 4.14% a year earlier, pressuring income generation from the company’s core reserve assets as interest rate expectations moderated.
The following financial performance charts demonstrate the revenue and margin trends over the past five quarters:
Total revenue and reserve income less distribution, transaction and other costs reached $289 million in the quarter, up 15% year-over-year. However, adjusted operating expenses increased 23% to $146 million, reflecting the company’s continued investment in growth initiatives including Arc, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and geographic expansion.
USDC Network Expansion and Market Leadership
The presentation emphasized USDC’s strengthening position as the leading regulated stablecoin network, with operations spanning 35 blockchain networks, 55+ registrations and licenses across jurisdictions, and availability in 185 countries. Circle highlighted three core pillars supporting this leadership: interoperability through Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), comprehensive regulatory coverage, and transparent reserve backing.
The company’s network scale is illustrated by the following metrics on partnerships and infrastructure:
Daily on-chain transaction volume reached $163 billion in the quarter, representing 151% year-over-year growth. Daily minting and redemptions totaled $1.9 billion, up 105% from the prior year, while daily USDC notional volume traded declined 45% to $2.9 billion in line with broader cryptocurrency trading market weakness.
Circle’s market share gains were particularly pronounced in transaction volumes, with USDC capturing approximately 62% of stablecoin transaction volume in the second quarter compared to 36% a year earlier. The following chart demonstrates this competitive positioning:
The company also showcased strong year-over-year growth in key network indicators, with quarterly on-chain transaction volume reaching $14.8 trillion and mint/redeem volume totaling $170 billion:
Beyond USDC, Circle highlighted leadership positions in emerging categories. The company’s EURC stablecoin reached €382 million in circulation, up 2.2 times year-over-year, representing the largest euro stablecoin globally. Its USYC tokenized money market fund grew to $3.1 billion in assets, up 10.1 times from the prior year, establishing it as the largest tokenized money market fund worldwide.
Strategic Initiatives: Arc, OCC Charter, and Institutional Partnerships
The presentation positioned Arc as a transformative opportunity for Circle, with CEO Jeremy Allaire stating it "represents one of the most massive opportunities that we’ve ever seen as a company" and could be "as large as USDC itself." The Arc Mainnet is scheduled to launch September 16, 2026, with over 100 private mainnet partners already engaged.
The following slide details Arc’s pre-mainnet performance and validator composition:
Arc’s validator set includes prominent financial institutions such as BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, Standard Chartered, and others, providing what Circle describes as "enterprise-grade security" and "distributed stewardship" while bringing built-in distribution capabilities through validator partners’ existing client relationships.
A major strategic development highlighted in the presentation was DTCC’s integration with Arc, enabling tokenized real-world assets to leverage stablecoin-native settlement. The integration provides access to DTC’s potential liquidity pool of more than $114 trillion in assets.
Circle also announced that BlackRock’s BUIDL fund—the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund—will deploy on Arc, with BlackRock serving as a founding validator. This partnership represents a significant endorsement of Circle’s institutional infrastructure strategy.
In July 2026, Circle received final OCC approval for Circle National Trust, establishing the company under direct federal oversight. The presentation emphasized this provides "a regulated foundation for digital asset custody" and positions "USDC reserve management as a future capability," bringing USDC infrastructure into "a proven federal banking framework designed for safety, soundness, and transparency."
Circle’s Cross-Chain Payment Network (CPN) demonstrated accelerating growth, with annualized transaction volume processed reaching $14.7 billion in the second quarter, up 76% quarter-over-quarter. The network enrolled 175 financial institutions, representing 29% sequential growth.
Market Position and Competitive Dynamics
The presentation highlighted USDC’s growing share in rapidly evolving digital asset markets, particularly in perpetual futures (perps) markets and emerging categories like real-world assets and prediction markets. USDC’s share of open interest in Binance and Hyperliquid perps markets increased from 29% in Q2 2025 to 40% in Q2 2026.
Circle also emphasized internal adoption of artificial intelligence and agentic systems, stating that 86% of employees are weekly active users of AI tools and that the company has shipped over 1,125 AI applications year-to-date. The presentation introduced Circle’s "Agent Stack," describing a vision for agent-to-agent payments and a marketplace where 99.3% of x402 agent-payment volume settles in USDC.
The company framed its AI adoption as building toward an "agentic corporation" with hybrid agent and human teams, stating that H2 2026 will focus on "orchestration at scale" connecting people, agents, and models into one coordinated system.
Financial Outlook and Guidance
Circle significantly raised its full-year 2026 other revenue guidance to $310-330 million from $150-170 million previously, primarily reflecting $242 million in recognized Arc token presale revenue during the second quarter. The company also lifted its RLDC margin outlook to 41.7-43.7% from 38-40%, though management noted that excluding Arc revenue, the margin would be near the midpoint of the prior range.
Adjusted operating expense guidance remained unchanged at $570-585 million, with management indicating expectations to land near the high end of that range as the company continues investing in Arc, AI infrastructure, and geographic expansion. The multi-year USDC circulation growth target of 40% CAGR was maintained.
The presentation included third-party stablecoin market size projections for 2030 ranging from $0.9 trillion to $4.0 trillion, implying compound annual growth rates between 27% and 77% from current levels around $300 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen addressed dividend policy during the earnings call, stating Circle does not plan quarterly payouts and believes "the returns available to our shareholders on investing in the platform are far greater than those from paying out quarterly dividends."
The following chart shows USDC circulation trends and platform mix over the past five quarters, with Circle’s direct platform share declining to 53% from 69% a year earlier as off-platform adoption accelerated:
Risks and Market Reception
Despite strong operational metrics, the 4% premarket decline in Circle’s stock price following the presentation suggests investor concerns about several factors. The reserve return rate’s decline to 3.48% from 4.14% a year earlier could pressure income if interest rates remain lower for longer. The 23% year-over-year increase in adjusted operating expenses raises questions about the path to margin expansion.
Arc represents significant execution risk, as the product has yet to launch and gain meaningful adoption despite Circle positioning it as a growth driver potentially comparable to USDC. The company’s heavy reliance on the $242 million Arc token presale to boost other revenue guidance also highlights the concentration of near-term growth expectations on a single initiative.
The broader digital asset market declined approximately 40% year-over-year, which could reduce trading activity and collateral demand even as USDC’s payment and settlement use cases continue expanding. Circle’s stock remains well below its 52-week high of $189.92, trading at $60.70 in premarket activity, though above the 52-week low of $49.90.
Management emphasized that the Clarity Act remains under Senate negotiation while the GENIUS Act, which will create legal digital dollars in the U.S. financial system when it takes effect in January 2027, represents the more important near-term regulatory development for Circle’s business model.
Full presentation:
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