According to WooFunai, stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL.US) will announce its new quarterly earnings report before the US stock market on August 5. However, on the eve of the release of this season's earnings report, Wall Street already clearly disagreed over Circle's future value.
This core conflict does not stem from short-term performance fluctuations, but rather a fundamental rift in the market's perception of the company's future positioning: is it viewed as a stablecoin issuer that relies on USDC's large-scale growth, or is it a technology company evolving into a digital financial infrastructure platform?
This misalignment of definitions directly led to disparate valuation judgments among agencies.
Among the cautious camp, Morgan Stanley (MS.US) is the most aggressive. Analyst James Faucette downgraded Circle's rating from “holding and waiting” to “reducing holdings,” and drastically cut the target price from $106 to $38.
Although Faucette has a four-star rating on TipRanks and a judging win rate of 60%, its average return over the past two years was only 3.1%. This data prompted the market to examine the effectiveness of its bearish logic. Faucette's core argument points directly to Circle's revenue model bottlenecks: since the third quarter of 2025, the scale of USDC circulation has not actually increased, and there are no large-scale new application scenarios other than remittance and bank card consumption.
This means that Circle's core “reserve income” — that is, interest income earned by allocating USDC reserve assets to cash and short-term US Treasury bonds — is facing severe growth pressure. If the scale of USDC stagnates, Circle's revenue structure may be forced to lean towards transaction revenue with lower profit margins, causing profit performance to fall short of market expectations. The current valuation already implies excessive growth assumptions. Also resonating with Faucette's views is Mizuho Securities (MFG.US) analyst Dan Dolev. Dolev has a higher rating on TipRanks, reaching 4.5 stars, but he also lowered his expectations and rated Circle as “holding”, and the target price was lowered from $50 to $45.
According to data compiled by WooFunai, both mainstream institutions believe that in the absence of new growth engines, Circle's traditional business model is difficult to support the current high valuation level.
In stark contrast to this is the aggressive bullish stance of TDCOwen (TDC.US). The agency covered Circle for the first time. Analyst Bryanc.Bergin directly gave it a “buy” rating, and the target price was set at $82.
Notably, Bergin's historical record is highly controversial: it only received a half-star rating at TipRanks, an average historical return of -3.4%, and a judged win rate as low as 43%. However, Bergin's logical framework completely deviates from the single dimension of USDC circulation and instead bets on Circle's potential to transform into a broader financial infrastructure platform. He believes that the market has seriously underestimated Circle's ability to expand in areas such as payments, fund management, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, developer services, and blockchain infrastructure. Bergin predicts that by 2030, USDC circulation is expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate of about 31%, and the revenue growth rate based on handling fees will significantly exceed traditional reserve revenue.
Furthermore, Circle's ongoing Arc network is seen as a potential growth flashpoint, which is expected to further strengthen its moat in the field of digital financial infrastructure. This optimistic expectation of platform-based transformation made TDCowen ignore the risk of a short-term USDC growth slowdown and instead focus on revaluing long-term ecological value.
In addition to the company's internal business model game, changes in the external regulatory environment have also become a key variable affecting expectations. ClarityAct, which was previously seen as a catalyst for the industry, has been blocked. There are only a few working days left in the Senate summer recess, and market expectations for its short-term implementation have clearly cooled down. If the bill continues to be delayed, regulatory uncertainty over the adoption of stablecoins by institutions will continue to suppress the speed of commercialization, which in turn affects Circle's growth narrative. As a result, market sentiment was doubly squeezed by the uncertainty of the CLARITY Act before the earnings report was announced. This financial report is not only a verification of performance, but also a referendum on Circle's strategic positioning: investors will focus on reviewing the details of reserve revenue, in particular the progress of distribution agreements with Coinbase (COIN.US) and other partners, as well as the actual implementation of payment and RWA businesses. Following a period of ambiguity in the stablecoin regulatory framework, the market is once again facing a recalibration of the value anchors of leading issuers.