Circle IPO may be delayed. What is the valuation of the “first stablecoin stock”?

原创 | Odaily星球日报（ @OdailyChina )

作者：Wenser（ @wenser 2010 )

At the end of March, according to Fortune , Circle, the issuer of stablecoins, has hired an investment bank to start IPO preparations and plans to submit a listing application to the SEC in late April. On April 1, Circle officially submitted an S-1 prospectus to the US SEC and plans to list on the New York Stock 交换 with the CRCL stock code. Just when the market thought that this move might mean that there was no suspense about the first 加密货币 IPO after Trump took office, just a few days later, with the official start of Trumps tariff trade war, there were market news that Circle would postpone the IPO process. Therefore, the suspense of who will eventually win the crypto IPO after Trump took office and was determined to establish a crypto-friendly government continues.

Odaily Planet Daily will combine the current status of the stablecoin market, the trend of US crypto regulation, and Circles valuation system to compare and analyze other potential IPO crypto projects in this article.

Suspense 1: Can Circle win the title of “the first stablecoin concept stock”?

Let me first state the conclusion. Circle has a high probability of winning the title of “the first stablecoin concept stock”.

原因如下：

1. Major competitors have no intention of taking the IPO development route. Earlier, after Circle submitted its IPO application prospectus, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the issuer behind USDT, 写道 Tether does not need to go public. (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: It is worth mentioning that the picture accompanying Paolos tweet is a photo of himself and the Wall Street Bull, which has a strong implication of I dont need to talk to Wall Street investment banks about going public, but Wall Street investment banks need me)

Tether CEO’s domineering speech

2. Circle ranks second among stablecoin issuers. 根据 information from the Coingecko website , USDC currently has a market value of $60.14 billion, second only to USDT, which has a market value of $144 billion, and ranks sixth in the cryptocurrency industry.

3. Circle has a complete compliance system and can be called the most compliant stablecoin issuer. It is understood that Circle is registered as a money service business (MSB) in the United States and complies with relevant regulations such as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA); it has money transmission licenses in 49 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia; in 2023, Circle obtained a major payment institution license issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), allowing it to operate in Singapore; in 2024, Circle obtained an electronic money institution (EMI) license issued by the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), enabling it to issue USDC and EURC in Europe in accordance with the EU Crypto-Asset 市场 Regulation (MiCA) regulations. It can be said that USDC is one of the few stablecoins that operates in compliance in the United States, Europe and even Asia.

Therefore, according to the current progress of IPO application submission, USDCs market position, and the performance attitudes of other competitors, Circle should be determined to win the first stablecoin concept stock.

The next question is: Can Circles main business support its market value after the IPO? The answer still needs to be found in Circles IPO prospectus.

Mystery 2: Is Circle’s USDC stablecoin a good business that is sure to make a profit?

Let me first state the conclusion. At present, Circle’s operating conditions are not particularly optimistic.

Previously, we had conducted a detailed analysis of the specific situation and business model of Tether, the leader in the stablecoin track, in the article The market value of the first stablecoin USDT hits a new high, revealing the 100 billion business empire behind Tether; in the article Inventory of the 7 major crypto money-making machines: with an annual profit of 14 billion US dollars, it is the ultimate tax officer in the crypto world , we also conducted a labor efficiency analysis of Tethers money-making machine with an annual profit of nearly 14 billion US dollars and less than 200 employees. Tethers high profit and small team made it top the list.

However, Circle’s IPO prospectus shows that its operating conditions are obviously quite different from Tether:

• In terms of specific revenue: In 2024, Circle reported revenue of $1.68 billion, up from $1.45 billion in the previous year, a year-on-year increase of 16.5%; however, its net profit fell from $268 million to $156 million, a year-on-year decrease of 42%. This was partly due to the $908 million in distribution costs paid to partners (including Coinbase and Binance).

• In terms of reserve funds: about 85% of USDCs reserves are invested in U.S. Treasury bonds (managed by BlackRocks Circle Reserve Fund), and about 20% are deposited in cash deposits in the U.S. banking system; in comparison, USDTs reserves are more diversified, including 5.47% BTC.

USDT reserve details

• In terms of management personnel costs: According to the prospectus , Circle spends more than $260 million on employee salaries and nearly $140 million on administrative expenses each year; depreciation and amortization costs are as high as $50.85 million, IT infrastructure costs are as high as $27.1 million, and marketing costs are around $17.32 million. It has to be said that Circles expenses in this regard are far more complicated than Tethers.

Circles operating data for the past three years

In addition, it is worth noting that Circles revenue sources are far less than Tethers. 99% of its revenue comes from reserve interest, which is about US$1.661 billion; its transaction fees and other income are only US$15.169 million.

In other words, at this stage, Circle is doing the business of earning interest from deposits, rather than earning two ends from the same business like Tether – earning interest from reserves and collecting corresponding service fees through fund redemption. It should be noted that the market size of cross-border payments is as high as 150 trillion US dollars, and now this market is mainly occupied by USDT, which is more decentralized and less regulated.

In contrast, Circle is still under the control of partners such as Coinbase and Binance.

Suspense three: Will the ambiguous relationship with Coinbase continue?

The full name of the company behind Circle is Circle Internet Financial, Inc., which was originally founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in 2013; the governance of USDC is managed by Centre Consortium, which was jointly established by Circle and Coinbase. However, with the changes in the regulatory environment, in August 2023, Circle spent $210 million in stock to acquire Coinbases corresponding shares in Centre Consortium, and took over the issuance and governance of USDC in full, but the 50%: 50% profit-sharing agreement between the two still continues to this day.

Distribution cost information in Circles prospectus

In 2024, of the $908 million in distribution costs that Circle paid to Coinbase, according to Coinbases previously released 10-K annual report, $224 million was rewarded to users in the form of staking income (holding USDC can earn a 4.5% return, and some users have previously reported that the APY is as high as around 12% ), and the remaining approximately $686 million belongs to Coinbase itself.

@0x_Todd The actual income received and the corresponding interface

At present, this move can perhaps be understood as a conspiracy adopted by Circle and Coinbase to expand the circulating market value and market share of USDC. Having said that, such a high interest rate on stablecoins makes it hard not to wonder whether Coinbase and Circle are doing this out of necessity in order to pave the way for their IPO, and are staging a high-interest deposit-raising drama for retail investors in the market.

In addition, Coinbase is not the only one enjoying Circle’s high distribution benefits, Binance is also on the list.

According to the prospectus , in November 2024, Binance became the first approved participant under the Circle stablecoin ecosystem agreement. According to the cooperation agreement, Binance needs to promote USDC on its platform and hold a certain amount of USDC in its treasury reserves; Circle pays Binance a one-time prepayment of US$60.25 million and agrees to pay a monthly incentive fee based on the USDC balance held by Binance. The incentive fee is only paid when Binance holds at least 1.5 billion USDC, and Binance promises to hold 3 billion USDC (exceptions may be made in certain circumstances). The cooperation is divided into two parts: marketing and treasury reserves, both of which are for two years. If Binance terminates the marketing agreement ahead of schedule, it will still have to fulfill its one-year reduced rate payment and promotion obligations. The parties may terminate the agreement ahead of schedule under certain circumstances.

It can be seen that Circle is well aware of the importance of playing high-profile when it comes to winning over allies and expanding its market base.

In addition, in the past year, Circle has also been active in the Solana and Base ecosystems. In the Solana ecosystem alone, according to incomplete statistics from Odaily Planet Daily, a total of more than 3.25 billion USDCs have been issued since 2025, a total of 13 times, with a single issuance of up to 250 million.

Incomplete statistics

On March 26, USDC on-chain issuance exceeded 60 billion U.S. dollars. According to statistics from TheBlock , among them:

• The issuance of Ethereum is about 36 billion;

• Solana: about 10 billion;

• Base: about 3.7 billion;

• Hyperliquid: approximately 2.2 billion;

• Arbitrum: approximately 1.8 billion;

• Berachain has approximately 1 billion coins.

TheBlock statistics USDC issuance on each chain

As of now, the circulation of USDC remains at around 60 billion US dollars. According to DefiLlama data, the current total market value of stablecoins is approximately 233.535 billion US dollars, with a 7-day decrease of approximately 0.58%; USDCs market share is approximately 26%.

From this, we can draw a conclusion in stages: Circle’s subsequent development still depends on the support of Coinbase. Similarly, it may continue to supply about 50% of its distribution income to Coinbase.

Mystery 4: Will Circle be affected by the US stablecoin regulatory bill?

In its prospectus, Circle mentioned potential regulatory risks, such as U.S. regulators or legislation requiring that stablecoin issuers with an issuance amount of more than $10 billion must be banks or have an affiliated relationship with banks.

Risk Disclosure Information in the Prospectus

Based on the existing information, the latest progress of the US Stablecoin Regulatory Act is as follows:

• In February 2025, U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty and others proposed the GENIUS Act, which aims to establish a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. The bill stipulates that stablecoin issuers with a market value of more than $10 billion will be regulated by the Federal Reserve (FED), while smaller issuers can choose to operate under state-level supervision; all issuers must support their stablecoin issuance with high-quality liquid assets (such as US dollars and Treasury bonds) 1:1, and prohibit the issuance of algorithmic stablecoins.

• At the same time, U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters proposed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act (STABLE Act), which requires all stablecoin issuers to obtain federal licenses and be supervised by the Federal Reserve. The bill emphasizes consumer protection and requires issuers to hold reserve assets equal to the amount issued and comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC regulations.

As a benchmark for stablecoin compliance, it is only natural for Circle to make necessary risk disclosures in this regard. Although there was news that Tether is working with US lawmakers to influence the way the US regulates fiat currencies, Circle should have no problem dealing with regulatory pressure under the care of allies such as Coinbase and BlackRock.

Therefore, the risks in this regard are relatively controllable.

Mystery 5: What is Circle’s valuation?

Although Circles S-1 filing did not give a specific IPO fundraising price, according to secondary market transactions, its current valuation is about $4-5 billion, and its equity structure is divided into Class A (1 vote/share), Class B (5 votes/share, upper limit 30%) and Class C (no voting rights), and the founders retain control. The listing will also provide liquidity for early investors and employees.

Compared with the high valuation of US$9 billion in the previous round of financing, this figure has been halved due to the market share of stablecoins and the recent decline in market conditions, but there is still room for profit.

In comparison, Coinbases stock price today is currently $151.47, and its market value is currently $38.455 billion, which is about 8-9 times that of Circle.

In addition, due to the tariff trade war launched by the Trump administration, the expectation of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve may affect Circles revenue, which should also be taken into consideration.

Whether Circle’s diversified business can support the corresponding valuation in the future remains to be verified by time.

I personally believe that compared to USDT, which has more flexible usage scenarios, USDC can only have greater development space when combined with US bank-related businesses. Previously, US banks Custodia Bank and Vantage Bank jointly issued Avit, the first US bank-supported stablecoin based on a permissionless blockchain, on the Ethereum network. This move may indicate that the next round of stablecoin competition will become increasingly fierce.

If Circle wants to secure its position as the “second largest stablecoin”, it may need to learn from Tether’s experience in generating revenue from BTC reserves and redemption fees.

Finally, here’s an Easter egg in Circle’s IPO prospectus – Circle officials mentioned that they are a “remote-working company” with higher operational and network security risks. Combined with the theft of $1.5 billion in Bybit assets in February and the various security incidents caused by hackers represented by the North Korean hacker organization Lazarus Group, this risk warning may not be groundless, but a risk factor that many crypto projects need to consider in advance.

Circle officially discloses the risks of remote work

Finally, the author of Odaily personally predicts that Circle will still conduct a crypto IPO earlier than crypto companies such as Kraken and Chainalysis. After all, for stablecoin companies with high operating costs and a single narrative, it is more urgent to reach outside investors through IPO.

This article is sourced from the internet: Circle IPO may be delayed. What is the valuation of the “first stablecoin stock”?

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