circle

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest announced its trading records on August 7, purchasing 313,764 shares of Circle (CRCL) stock at a price of $66.67, with a total value of approximately $20.92 million; purchasing 114,815 shares of SpaceX (SPCX) stock at a price of $133.1, with a total value of approximately $15.28 million; purchasing 59,668 shares of Coinbase (COIN) stock at a price of $153.6, with a total value of approximately $9.16 million.

Circle's Senior Director of Strategy and Policy, Patrick Hansen, stated that after the comprehensive implementation of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), licenses have been issued for 35 electronic currency tokens from 21 issuers, and local issuers are making good progress. Patrick Hansen pointed out that the strict regulations of MiCA have made it impossible for most major stablecoin issuers, including Tether, to meet operational requirements. Currently, only USDG, USDC, and EURC comply with the framework requirements, while other stablecoins fall outside the regulatory scope of MiCA, leaving EU users unprotected or unable to access services.He believes that the upcoming review of MiCA should address this issue and provide a more pragmatic operational pathway for foreign issuers. The EU's Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services, and Capital Markets Union launched a public consultation on May 20 to assess whether the current framework is still applicable, with the consultation continuing until September 30.

According to The Block, research firm Bernstein reaffirmed its "Outperform" rating and maintained a target price of $140 after Circle announced its Q2 2026 financial results, believing that the company's latest performance constitutes a "reverse validation" of the market's bearish views. Bernstein analysts stated that the market currently underestimates USDC's long-term growth potential and Circle's advantages in distribution channels, liquidity, and regulatory compliance, due to two major core concerns regarding Circle—intensifying competition in stablecoins and changes in the interest rate environment that may affect reserve income.Investors may not have fully accounted for the future revenue opportunities from transaction fees, partner ecosystems, and the Arc blockchain that Circle could generate. The firm specifically pointed out that several infrastructure initiatives recently advanced by Circle, including obtaining a national trust bank license in the U.S., expanding the Circle Payments Network, and the planned launch of the Arc public chain mainnet on September 16, could all become future growth drivers. Additionally, Bernstein noted that Circle has raised its guidance for other revenues and profit margins after deducting distribution costs for 2026, expecting to confirm approximately $180 million in Arc token presale revenue.Analysts believe that future staking yields, gas fees, and ecosystem partnership revenues from Arc have not been fully reflected in current valuation expectations. As of the end of Q2, the circulating supply of USDC was $73.3 billion, a decrease of 5% from the previous quarter but an increase of 19% year-over-year. Bernstein believes that Circle is shifting from a purely crypto trading infrastructure to payments, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and broader financial infrastructure, which will drive USDC into the next phase of growth. Circle's stock closed at $63.28 on Wednesday, and Bernstein's target price of $140 implies a potential upside of about 121%.

According to Cryptopolitan, the U.S. Senate will enter a recess on August 7, and the window for the CLARITY Act to pass before then is extremely limited. If a vote is not completed this week, the next feasible window will be pushed to September, and if missed again, it may be delayed until after the midterm elections, potentially not being realized until 2027. The main disagreement in the bill currently lies in the Democrats' insistence on including ethical provisions for cryptocurrency professionals targeting senior government officials, but the merged draft has not yet incorporated relevant statements.During this regulatory vacuum, large institutions like Coinbase and Circle are better able to adapt to uncertain environments due to their capital strength—ARK Invest increased its holdings in the aforementioned two companies this week, and Circle also received approval for a federal national trust bank license in July—while small and medium-sized cryptocurrency companies and DeFi projects continue to face pressure. In terms of the market, Polymarket data shows that the probability of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 has dropped to 23%, a significant decline from the 67%–75% predicted by Galaxy Research in mid-May.

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchased $17.3 million worth of shares in Circle Internet Group and $19.7 million worth of shares in SpaceX on Wednesday.On that day, Circle-related stocks rose by 0.05%, closing at $63.28; SpaceX-related stocks fell by 13.61%, closing at $108.27.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Circle minted 500 million USDC on the Solana chain. By 2026, a total of 76.05 billion USDC will have been minted on the Solana chain.

During the Circle Q2 earnings call, Citigroup analyst Pete Christensen asked about the competitive landscape following the launch of the Open USD Alliance, inquiring how Circle would compete for distribution channels given that reserve revenue sharing is gradually becoming an industry standard and Circle is constrained by its existing economic arrangements with Coinbase.Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire responded that Circle has signed distribution cooperation agreements with over 150 companies and often collaborates with Coinbase on distribution efforts. An example of this is the revenue-sharing arrangement that Circle and Coinbase have jointly established with Hyperliquid. He added that about 70% of the companies expressing interest in participating in such alliance projects are already partners in the Circle network. On the day of the earnings report, Circle also announced that Visa and Mastercard would expand their cooperation as key infrastructure partners for Arc.

Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire stated during tonight's earnings call: "Our agreement with Coinbase has been renewed under the existing terms, ensuring that USDC continues to play a central role in all of Coinbase's product offerings.At the same time, we look forward to expanding our USDC network through distribution agreements with strategically aligned partners."

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated during the earnings call that the market is shifting from speculative cryptocurrencies to supporting an open global digital asset market for tokenized stocks, tokenized commodities, and other tokenized assets.

Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) announced its Q2 2026 financial report, with total revenue and reserve income of $701 million, a year-on-year increase of 7%; adjusted EBITDA of $143 million, a year-on-year increase of 8%; and net profit of $48 million, a year-on-year increase of $530 million (mainly affected by last year's IPO equity incentives). The circulation of USDC reached $73.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%, with on-chain transaction volume of $14.8 trillion for the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 151%.In terms of business, Circle received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Circle National Trust, a federal trust bank, becoming one of the first stablecoin issuers to hold a federal banking license. The Arc public blockchain will launch its mainnet on September 16, with more than ten institutions including BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, and Standard Chartered serving as founding third-party verification nodes. BlackRock plans to deploy the BUIDL fund on Arc, while DTCC will promote the tokenization of DTC custodial assets. The Circle Payment Network (CPN) achieved an annualized transaction volume of $14.7 billion in the past 30 days, a quarterly increase of 76%, with 175 institutions onboarded, a quarterly increase of 29%. The Agent Stack now offers over 900 paid services.

Circle announced that its open blockchain network Arc, aimed at the global financial market, will officially launch on the public mainnet on September 16. It is currently operating on a private mainnet and has attracted over 100 institutional and ecosystem participants. BlackRock, DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation), Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered Bank, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa will participate as genesis validators for network security and governance.BlackRock plans to deploy its dollar institutional digital liquidity fund BUIDL on Arc, while DTCC is advancing the tokenization and settlement integration with Arc, supporting the tokenization of assets held at DTC to Arc for on-chain settlement based on stablecoins. Circle also plans to launch a supporting application framework, AI tools, and tokenized asset issuance management capabilities on Arc.

According to official news, Circle Gateway has implemented a programmable authorization model by supporting ERC-1271 signatures, allowing smart contracts and smart contract wallets to directly use the Gateway.Developers do not need to set up additional delegated approvers and can access a unified USDC balance system through existing smart contract authorization logic.

According to Fortune, the tokenized securities company Dinari, based in California, USA, announced a partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle to provide blockchain-based tokenized stock trading services for American investors, and plans to bring the entire S&P 500 index constituents on-chain.Dinari stated that its platform represents underlying stocks through dShares, with each token corresponding to real securities held in custody by regulated institutions. Investors can buy and sell stocks using USDC through self-custody wallets, and it supports features such as instant settlement and cross-platform asset transfers.This model aims to connect the approximately $300 billion stablecoin market with the over $60 trillion U.S. stock market. Currently, the Dinari platform is live in 85 jurisdictions, supporting over 6,000 types of tokenized assets.

According to The Block, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchased approximately $8 million in Coinbase stock and about $1.4 million in Circle Internet Group stock on Monday.

According to a report by Fortune, stablecoin issuer Circle announced the acquisition of nearly 1,000 blockchain-related patents from IBM. Circle officially characterized this acquisition as an important measure to "advance the global internet-native financial infrastructure." Following the announcement, the company's stock price rose by about 2%.However, analysts are cautious about this acquisition—IBM's own blockchain business has essentially declared failure, and its patent portfolio reflects more of a patent application technique rather than true technological innovation.There are concerns that Circle may use this batch of patents to initiate lawsuits against competitors, collect patent licensing fees, or pressure startups, and it is also possible that they could transfer them to patent troll companies for extortion-style protection.