Circle’s $1.2 billion IPO in June marked one of the year’s largest FinTech debuts, and on Tuesday (Aug. 12), the company’s leadership updated investors during a second-quarter 2025 earnings call, with CEO Jeremy Allaire framing the quarter as a “pivotal moment” for the company and the broader adoption of stablecoins.
“I’m proud of Circle’s performance in the second quarter, our first as a public company, where we demonstrated sustained growth and adoption of our platform across a multitude of use cases and with a diverse set of industry-defining partners,” Allaire said. “…[We] are seeing accelerating interest in building on stablecoins and partnering with Circle across every significant sector of the financial industry, with major internet companies and commercial engagement all around the world.”
July brought another turning point: the GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Trump on July 18. The legislation establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins, confirming that regulated issuers like Circle are not issuing securities and mandating 1:1 reserves in cash and short-duration Treasurys.
Circle is a stablecoin company in the midst of scaling a regulated internet financial platform.
The top-line numbers from its first-ever earnings report capture the scale of its momentum. Circle-issued USDC in circulation surged 90% year over year to $61.3 billion as of June 30, with an additional 6.4% increase to $65.2 billion by Aug. 10. Total revenue and reserve income rose 53% year-over-year to $658 million.
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“Stablecoins are a winner-take-most market,” Allaire said during the call.
Read also: 4 Questions CFOs Need to Ask as Wall Street Embraces Stablecoins
From Payments to Platform Infrastructure
Circle closed Q2 with a 28% share of the fiat-backed stablecoin market, up 595 basis points year over year. The number of “meaningful wallets” (holding more than $10 USDC) rose 68% to 5.7 million. On-chain USDC transaction volume reached $5.9 trillion in the quarter — a 5.4x increase from the prior year, according to an earnings presentation.
In May, Circle launched the Circle Payments Network (CPN), aimed at enabling financial institutions to use stablecoins for payments. CPN debuted with four active cross-border corridors (Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria) and more than 100 institutions in the onboarding pipeline. Planned enhancements for the second half of 2025 include new corridors and enterprise-focused capabilities.
For payments professionals, CPN represents a departure from blockchain’s fragmented past. Instead of building custom connections to disparate stablecoin liquidity pools, institutions can plug into a single network that offers predictable settlement times and compliance controls. The strategic ambition is to turn USDC into a default settlement layer for global commerce, just as Visa and Mastercard became default layers for card payments.
In July, the company also unveiled Circle Gateway in testnet, offering instant, cross-chain liquidity for USDC without bridging or capital prepositioning. Users can access unified USDC balances across blockchains in under 500 milliseconds, and institutions can manage liquidity more efficiently.
The company’s most ambitious, and most recent, infrastructure play is Arc, an open Layer-1 blockchain built for stablecoin finance. Arc offers sub-second settlement, USDC as native gas, an integrated foreign exchange (FX) engine and opt-in privacy features. It’s designed to anchor payments, FX and capital markets applications while integrating with Circle’s broader platform. A public testnet launch is expected this fall.
See also: Stablecoins ‘Perform Poorly’ as Money and Could Face Uphill Payments Battle
Stablecoin Industry Performance Drivers
For corporate treasurers and payments strategists, Circle’s trajectory is worth close attention. If the company can maintain its regulatory lead, expand its infrastructure and prove that USDC can move billions of dollars daily without hiccups, it may redefine how corporate money moves.
The company’s partnerships reveal a firm expanding its reach into payments, treasury management and capital markets.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, for example, expanded adoption of Circle Wallets and USYC (Circle’s yield-bearing variant) availability for institutional products, positioning USDC as yield-bearing collateral. OKX is offering 1:1 USD-to-USDC conversions and shared banking infrastructure for 60 million users.
On the traditional finance side, Corpay integrated USDC into its global FX and card network for 24/7 liquidity and compliance; FIS is enabling U.S. banks to offer domestic and cross-border USDC payments through FIS Money Movement Hub; and Fiserv is exploring USDC integration into its digital banking tools.
Reserve income remains Circle’s primary revenue source, comprising $634 million of Q2’s total revenue. The increase was driven by higher average USDC in circulation (up 86% year over year) despite a 103-basis-point drop in the reserve return rate to 4.1%.
Other revenue — largely from subscription, services and transaction fees — jumped 252% year over year to $24 million, highlighting early traction in monetizing beyond reserve income.
Despite these gains, Circle faces an increasingly competitive environment. Yield-bearing digital assets, particularly tokenized money market funds, are emerging as alternatives for treasurers seeking stability and income. While USYC offers one answer, its adoption will depend on regulatory treatment and integration with existing treasury systems.
Trust, ultimately, remains the most critical factor.
