Circle Bets on 2026 Growth After Stablecoin Transactions Skyrocket 247%

Could the world be shifting from an “information era” to a “value era” in which blockchain makes value transfer as native to the internet as email made communication?

It’s a thesis that, by now, is relatively old hat. Crypto-native firms have been saying something along those lines for over a decade now. But it’s also a thesis that they have rarely stopped building toward.

On stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call Wednesday (Feb. 25), executives stressed to investors that the company’s focus on blockchain financial infrastructure is starting to bear fruit.

“The fourth quarter marked another step forward in Circle’s mission to build the infrastructure for an open, programmable internet financial system. USDC adoption continued to expand globally as more enterprises, developers, and public institutions integrated digital dollars into real-world payments, treasury, and onchain financial workflows,” Circle Co-founder, CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire said.

And Circle’s most recent financials increasingly support the thesis that the financial blockchain landscape’s shift is operational rather than philosophical. USDC in circulation reached $75.3 billion at year-end, up 72% year over year, while quarterly on-chain transaction volume hit $11.9 trillion, a 247% increase.

Circle’s share price jumped over 20% on the earnings news, as of reporting.

Still, the Wednesday rally comes after a difficult stretch. As of the prior day’s close, the stock had fallen roughly 23% year to date, reflecting investor anxiety over declining interest rates and intensifying competition in stablecoins, and Circle’s stock is trading down 76% from its all-time high. But the company’s latest numbers suggest a company widening its moat even as the macro tide potentially turns against its legacy revenue model.

See also: Circle CEO Calls Stablecoins a ‘Winner-Take-Most’ Marketplace

From Crypto Product to Financial Rail

Circle is positioning stablecoins not as an asset class, but as middleware for the global economy, with its USDC tokens being used as transactional infrastructure embedded inside FinTech, payments and treasury workflows.

Circle’s own data shows network effects accelerating, with meaningful wallets rising 59% to 6.8 million and the token now integrated across 30 blockchains. That breadth matters because infrastructure businesses win not by owning the endpoint, but by becoming impossible to route around.

USDC remains the second-largest stablecoin globally. In February, USDC’s market capitalization rose to $75.7 billion. By contrast, Tether’s USDT, the company’s main competitor, declined by approximately $1.5 billion to $184 billion. The gap remains wide, but the direction of travel matters. For the second consecutive year, USDC has outpaced USDT’s growth rate, powered by institutional demand for regulated, fully reserved digital dollars.

Management also raised its outlook for 2026 “other revenue” to between $150 million and $170 million, above prior forecasts of $143 million. That line item, which includes subscriptions, services and transaction fees, is becoming central to the company’s future.

“We saw strong engagement across our platform, meaningful progress toward launching Arc mainnet, continued growth in CPN TPV, and growing momentum for EURC and USYC. With increasing collaboration across traditional finance, fintech, and the public sector, Circle is helping build the infrastructure for a more open and resilient global financial system,” Allaire said.

See also: Banks and Stablecoin Wallets Battle for Digital Cash’s Front Door

Building an on-Chain Economic Operating System

If USDC is the monetary layer, Circle’s broader strategy is to build services around it in what the company calls “the economic OS for the internet.”

That stack now includes:

Circle Payments Network (CPN) for real-time global settlement

StableFX for continuous foreign exchange conversion

Tokenized money-market products like USYC

Arc, an enterprise blockchain intended to anchor institutional adoption

This strategy puts Circle into competition not with crypto exchanges, but with correspondent banking networks and payment processors. CPN so far has enrolled 55 financial institutions, with 74 more undergoing eligibility review, and is generating $5.7 billion in annualized transaction volume based on recent activity.

As executives told investors, Visa now allows U.S. issuers and acquirers to settle transactions using USDC, Intuit has entered a multi-year partnership to embed USDC into its platform, while Polymarket uses it as core collateral infrastructure.

And in a nod to the next technological convergence, Circle is investing in AI-driven payment automation by enabling AI software agents to transact autonomously using stablecoins.

Still, a notable risk factor is Circle’s revenue-sharing agreement with Coinbase, where approximately 56% of USDC reserve income is shared with the exchange. Another factor is the regulatory landscape, which could open the door to new competition.

“Everyone wants to figure this out,” Allaire said of U.S. crypto regulation.

The PYMNTS Intelligence and Citi report “Chain Reaction: Regulatory Clarity as the Catalyst for Blockchain Adoption” found that blockchain’s next leap will be shaped by regulation; that evolving guidance is beginning to create the foundations for safe, scalable blockchain adoption; and that implementation challenges continue to complicate progress.