Circle posts $865M quarterly revenue while cutting 5% of staff

What happened

Circle Internet Group, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, disclosed in its third-quarter earnings release on Wednesday that it has reduced its workforce by roughly 5%. In footnotes to its financial tables, the company said the reduction was intended to bring its organizational structure in line with its operating model and strategic priorities. Circle did not specify how many employees were affected or which teams were involved.

The move was booked as a restructuring charge. Circle recorded about $9.1 million in restructuring expenses for the quarter, mostly cash payments covering notice periods, severance, employee benefits and related costs. Those costs were partly offset by a $5.7 million reversal of stock-based compensation after unvested shares held by departing employees were forfeited.

The layoffs came in a quarter that was otherwise profitable. Net income from continuing operations reached $226 million, up 5% from a year earlier, on total revenue and reserve income of $865 million, a 17% increase. Adjusted EBITDA rose 85% year over year to $317 million. Chief executive Jeremy Allaire did not mention the job cuts in his comments on the results, nor in a post on X in which he described the period as a big quarter for Circle.

Why it matters

Circle is trimming costs at a moment when it is also expanding, which makes the restructuring a signal about how management is balancing growth spending against profitability. The quarter's headline growth was uneven: reserve income, the interest Circle earns on assets backing USDC and its largest revenue source, declined 8% to $658 million as returns on those reserves fell. A large share of the top-line increase instead came from outside the core business, including $182 million tied to the presale of ARC, the token for the company's Arc blockchain.

The results also show pressure on Circle's competitive position. USDC's share of the dollar-backed stablecoin market slipped to 27%, down 183 basis points from a year earlier, according to the company. At the same time, Allaire has framed the coming implementation of the GENIUS Act in January as a catalyst, writing that regulated digital dollars are going mainstream and that every layer of the platform is live and ready. How quickly that regulatory shift translates into share gains will be a central question for investors.

What the data shows

Reserve income fell 8% to $658 million, a drop Circle attributed largely to a 61 basis point decline in its reserve return rate. Average USDC in circulation rose 8% year over year to $73.3 billion, though the total ended the quarter flat at $73.9 billion. Other revenue climbed to $207 million, a 627% jump that included the $182 million ARC presale. Revenue minus distribution costs increased 55% to $453 million.

Onchain USDC transaction volume rose 49% year over year to $13.9 trillion, and Allaire said USDC carried 79% of all stablecoin transaction volume, up from 66% a year earlier. The Circle Payments Network ended the quarter at $41.3 billion in annualized volume, a 15-fold increase, according to the company. CoinGape reported the payments figure at $41.3 billion.

Background

The cuts arrive as Circle pushes into new products and markets. The company launched the public mainnet of its Arc blockchain on September 16, with BlackRock, DTCC and Visa among its permissioned validators, and more than 100 institutions and ecosystem builders joined at launch. Allaire said in October that Circle plans to enter roughly 40 emerging and developing markets, and the company has since partnered with payments-technology firm ACI Worldwide to pilot USDC settlement on Colombia's instant-payments network. Circle also signed a definitive agreement to acquire Singapore-based payments platform Tazapay, a deal expected to close in 2027 subject to regulatory approval.

Circle is one of several crypto firms to reduce headcount this year. Coinbase cut 14% of its workforce in May, with chief executive Brian Armstrong citing the market downturn and the company's adoption of artificial intelligence. The Ethereum Foundation reduced staff by 20% in June as part of a reorganization, custody firm BitGo cut 15% that month to focus on AI and stablecoins, exchange Luno cut a fifth of its global staff in July, and ETF issuer Bitwise cut 14% in August.

What is still unclear

Circle has not disclosed the absolute number of roles eliminated or the teams affected, so the scale of the reduction beyond the 5% figure remains unknown. The two accounts of the quarter also differ on USDC minting and redemption activity: Decrypt, citing Allaire's post, reported a record $208 billion minted and redeemed, while CoinGape reported $104 billion created and redeemed. The company's own filings would resolve the discrepancy.

What to watch

Investors will be watching whether the restructuring is a one-time adjustment or the start of a broader cost program, and whether reserve income keeps shrinking as rate conditions change. The January implementation of the GENIUS Act, the planned Tazapay acquisition and the pace of Arc adoption are the other markers to track. Whether ARC presale revenue recurs, or proves to be a one-quarter item, will also shape how the company's revenue base is read.

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