---
title: "Betting on the \"Singularity Moment\"! Circle conference call: AI agents will become the largest business increment"
description: "Circle announced its fourth-quarter financial report for 2025 during a conference call on February 25, 2026, showing a year-on-year surge in net profit to $133.4 million, with adjusted EBITDA growing "
type: "news"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/277019314.md"
published_at: "2026-02-26T10:00:42.000Z"
---

# Betting on the "Singularity Moment"! Circle conference call: AI agents will become the largest business increment

> Circle announced its fourth-quarter financial report for 2025 during a conference call on February 25, 2026, showing a year-on-year surge in net profit to $133.4 million, with adjusted EBITDA growing by 412%. The company has deeply integrated USDC with the AI agent economy, looking ahead to future growth potential. Total revenue reached $770 million, a 77% year-on-year increase, exceeding expectations. Management emphasized the prospects of combining AI with cryptocurrency, providing new imagination for Circle's valuation logic. The circulation of USDC has significantly increased, with USDC on the platform growing 5.6 times year-on-year, reaching $12.5 billion

With the fourth quarter financial report for 2025 showing a **profit surge of 412%**, stablecoin giant Circle is deeply binding its vast **USDC network with the explosive growth of the "AI agent economy,"** attempting to build the next generation of global economic operating systems.

On February 25, 2026, Circle held a conference call for the fourth quarter and full-year financial report for 2025. Company co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire and Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen attended to interpret the latest financial data, business growth, and the new commercial landscape regarding AI agent payments.

In the fourth quarter, with a significant increase in USDC circulation and on-chain transaction volume, the company's core profit metrics showed a geometric surge. Even more noteworthy is that management spent a considerable amount of time during the meeting depicting the **future of the combination of AI and cryptocurrency, which opens up new imagination for Circle's future growth space and valuation logic.**

In terms of performance, in the fourth quarter, the company achieved total revenue and reserve revenue of $770 million, **a year-on-year increase of 77%,** exceeding analysts' expectations of $747 million; net profit jumped from $4.4 million in the same period last year to $133.4 million, translating to earnings per share of $0.43, far exceeding Wall Street's expectation of $0.16; adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) reached $167 million, **a year-on-year increase of 412%,** also crushing the market consensus expectation of $129.7 million. **The adjusted EBITDA margin reached 54%.**

**The growth in the company's revenue primarily comes from the increase in USDC issuance, but due to high operational leverage and a low profit base formed by a one-time distribution payment of $60 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, this led to the profit surge.** Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen stated:

Moreover, the USDC within the platform (USDC stored in Circle's platform infrastructure) grew 5.6 times year-on-year by the end of the year, reaching $12.5 billion, accounting for 17% of the total circulation. **The reserve asset return rate in the fourth quarter was 3.8%, with distribution costs of $461 million, a year-on-year increase of 52%.**

The increase in network usage and the velocity of fund circulation is even more astonishing. In the fourth quarter, on-chain USDC transaction volume approached $12 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 247%. Among them, the transaction volume of the cross-chain transfer key infrastructure CCTP exceeded $41 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.7 times. CEO Allaire emphasized:

Regarding the performance guidance for 2026, management expects that \*\*over a multi-year cross-cycle period, USDC will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40%. Other revenues for fiscal year 2026 are expected to be between $150 million and $170 million, with adjusted operating expenses between $570 million and $585 million \*\*

During this conference call, the management's discussion on "AI Agents" even overshadowed traditional business lines. Circle believes that the explosion of AI is not only a technological evolution but also a reshaping of the way the economy operates, and USDC will become the core settlement currency of this new economy.

In addition to the AI narrative, the Layer-1 blockchain network Arc that Circle is building is another cornerstone supporting its future growth. Arc is not only a high-performance channel specifically built for AI agents but also a key to Circle's evolution from a single stablecoin network to a comprehensive "economic operating system."

Currently, the Arc testnet has been launched, attracting over 100 leading financial and technology companies to participate in testing, with a total transaction volume exceeding $166 million, an average daily transaction volume of about $2.3 million, and achieving nearly 100% uptime. The mainnet is expected to be officially launched in 2026.

Moreover, Circle's penetration into traditional mainstream markets is also accelerating. The number of registered financial institutions in the payment network CPN (Circle Payments Network) has increased from 29 in the third quarter to 55, with an annualized transaction volume reaching $5.7 billion, a 68% increase compared to the update in the third quarter.

The company has also established a formal partnership with the world's largest prediction market, Polymarket, and has received conditional approval from a digital currency bank. **With regulatory benefits such as the GENIUS Act, Circle is 迎来主流机构入场的黄金窗口期.**

Conference Date: February 25, 2026

Company Name: Circle Internet

Conference Description: Q4 2025 Earnings Call

Conference Operator:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. I am Kelvin, and I will be your operator for today's conference. At this moment, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings call for Circle Internet Group. All lines are now muted to prevent any background noise. There will be a question-and-answer session following the speakers' remarks. (Operator instructions)

Thank you. Now, I will turn the call over to John Andrews, Vice President of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John Andrews, Vice President of Capital Markets and Investor Relations:

Thank you, operator, good morning. Welcome everyone to Circle's Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings call. Joining me today are our co-founder, CEO, and Chairman Jeremy Allaire; and our Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen. Earlier this morning, we released our earnings press release and earnings presentation on Circle's investor relations website. The transcript of this conference call will also be posted on that website once it is available I need to remind everyone that our financial report press release, presentation, and this conference call contain forward-looking statements. Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which are unpredictable or quantifiable and some beyond our control, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in our forward-looking statements may not occur or happen, and actual results may differ significantly from those predicted in the forward-looking statements. Information regarding risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause these results to differ is included in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We will disclose non-GAAP financial metrics during today’s conference call. Definitions of these non-GAAP financial metrics and a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial metrics can be found in the financial report press release and presentation posted on the Circle investor relations website. Non-GAAP financial metrics should be considered as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, GAAP metrics. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Jeremy Allaire. Jeremy?

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I want to first talk about what I see as an extraordinary transformation taking place. **I’m referring not only to the changes we see in blockchain and stablecoins but also to the broader context of technological acceleration, software-driven technological acceleration, and artificial intelligence.** I believe we are at the very early stages of a profound and fundamental shift in how the global economic system operates. Our global economic system will not only become more native to the internet but also more automated. **We are entering a world where, in my view, there could be tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of AI agents interacting on the internet and performing economic functions.**

Looking back over the past few decades, we have seen this progress, and it is accelerating. This process is that we have built increasingly more software-native infrastructure, with more and more data and transactions occurring on the internet. The evolution from the information internet to software distribution, interactive media, and the commercial internet has all been made possible through the adoption of web, cloud, and mobile platforms, creating extraordinary value over time.

Around 2013, we began to see another shift, this time into the value era of the internet, with the emergence of early blockchain platforms. Later, through the innovation of fiat-backed stablecoins, we witnessed the birth of a transformative internet-native currency layer. Now, as we gain regulatory clarity and the technology matures, **we see these developments colliding directly with another major platform shift, namely the adoption of AI platforms.** This value era, **the combination of this economic operating system and internet-native currency layer with artificial intelligence, agent-based economic activity, and automation, seems likely to drive the largest acceleration of economic activity ever seen in human history.** And we are really just getting started. Our goal at Circle has always been to build a new internet financial system, to build the software infrastructure that supports it, and today we are more excited than ever to have this opportunity Let's talk about our key highlights in the fourth quarter. Our stablecoin network continues to grow. **We saw the circulation of USDC at approximately $75 billion by the end of the year, a year-on-year increase of 72%,** although we experienced some declines in the fourth quarter due to adjustments in the cryptocurrency market. We also observed that the transaction volume on our network continued to grow significantly, **with on-chain USDC transaction volume nearing $12 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 247%.** This continues to reflect the increasing speed and utility of digital dollars on the internet. The fourth quarter achieved very strong financial performance. **This quarter, we achieved total revenue and reserve revenue of $770 million, a year-on-year increase of 77%. Adjusted EBITDA for this quarter was $167 million, a year-on-year increase of 412%, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%.** Overall, we achieved very strong annual growth across the board this quarter.

Importantly, our platform continues to expand. **We launched the testnet for Arc (our Layer-1 blockchain network) and expect to launch the mainnet this year.** The transaction volume and number of participants in the Circle Payments Network continue to grow strongly, and we are seeing good momentum in real-world payments and cross-border settlements.

We have also added new products. We launched the beta version of StableFX, our new on-chain foreign exchange application, as well as xReserve, which supports the continued expansion of USDC across a wide blockchain ecosystem. We now support the use of USDC on over 30 different blockchain networks, with interoperability being a key part of Circle's platform strategy.

Mainstream applications are deepening across a wide range of mainstream enterprises and institutions. Intuit and Circle are collaborating to bring low-cost programmable money to millions of consumers and businesses through Intuit's technology powered by Circle. Visa continues to expand its integration with Circle's stablecoin, announcing the launch of USDC settlement capabilities, allowing U.S. Visa card issuers and acquirers to settle using USDC outside of normal banking hours. Earlier this month, **Circle and the world's largest prediction market Polymarket announced a formal partnership, with Polymarket continuing to advance the use of USDC as the core collateral and settlement asset for its market, showcasing our very strong position as a leading regulated stablecoin network.**

Now, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Major enterprises and financial institutions continue to integrate and support USDC in their businesses. We see different companies like Cash App, Gusto, Deal, Interactive Brokers, JP Morgan, and Mastercard launching products and services utilizing USDC. Currently, the activity we are seeing from startups, enterprises, and financial companies is greater than at any time in our history The stablecoin market continues to grow strongly, and our position in this market is also strengthening. Fiat-backed stablecoins have increased by $85 billion in a year, a year-on-year growth of 46%. In this market, our competitive position remains strong, and we continue to maintain a significant market share. Importantly, despite many other companies trying to enter and compete, this is actually a market dominated by two major issuers. **This reflects the very durable network effects we maintain, which create significant barriers to entry and adoption.**

In terms of actual trading volume growth, **Circle's share of trading volume increased from 39% in the third quarter to nearly 50% in the fourth quarter.** This is based on an analysis published by Visa, which aims to eliminate internal transactions, exchange wallet rebalancing, and bots to truly capture trading volumes that better reflect real economic activity. You may also notice that **despite many other stablecoins entering the market over the past year, their usage in real transactions is actually zero.** As I mentioned in my opening remarks, Circle's network is growing strongly, with on-chain transaction volume increasing 3.5 times year-on-year. Notably, **CCTP (a key infrastructure for the interoperability of USDC) has grown 3.7 times year-on-year, with transaction volume exceeding $41 billion in the fourth quarter.** I know competition is a major topic for many, so I want to talk again about the enduring network effects that Circle maintains. Fundamentally, **Circle's competitive position is built on trust, as a publicly traded company that is audited and deeply committed to compliance, regulated in jurisdictions around the world, and with as much transparency as possible, we have earned the trust of major financial institutions, payment companies, enterprises, developers, and end users worldwide.** This trust is reflected in our fundamental liquidity, with $75 billion of USDC in circulation, and unparalleled liquidity infrastructure that supported $163 billion in minting and redemption volume in the fourth quarter. This minting and redemption, which involves the large-scale one-to-one creation and redemption of digital dollars through banking systems around the world, is unmatched by any other participant in the market.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, we saw growth in distribution and network usage, as mentioned earlier, with on-chain transaction volume approaching $12 trillion, meaningful wallets using USDC continuing to grow, and our product platform also expanding. The breadth of the infrastructure we provide, the breadth of the liquidity services we offer, and new applications like CPN and StableFX make our entire product platform unreplicable by other market participants. Importantly, acting as a market-neutral infrastructure, not competing with our customers and partners, and building widely accessible and usable technology across as many platforms as possible are also key to our competitive success Next, let's talk about our platform expansion. Circle's platform has indeed evolved from being a stablecoin network to a comprehensive platform and infrastructure partner for on-chain finance, covering our three major platform pillars. Arc and our developer infrastructure, which includes tools, operating systems, and on-chain protocols and infrastructure to enable the flourishing of internet financial systems. Our digital assets and services, which include USDC and EURC, the world's leading regulated digital dollar and digital euro, tokenized funds like USYC, and liquidity services such as Circle Mint and xReserve, ensure the liquidity and availability of stablecoins globally. Additionally, our applications, CPN is a rapidly growing application service for payments, and stableFX, currently in beta testing, is an application service for foreign exchange.

We continue to invest in our platform and infrastructure to expand what we can offer to global companies. **Through Arc and our developer infrastructure, we have seen very strong progress. The Arc testnet launched in the fourth quarter, with over 100 companies from banking, capital markets, digital assets, technology, commerce, and payments, all leading brands actively testing, evaluating, and collaborating with us to bring it into commercial production.** Since the launch of the testnet, we have achieved nearly 100% uptime, with average transaction finality of half a second, and total transaction volume exceeding $166 million, with an average daily transaction volume of about $2.3 million in our testnet environment. We expect to launch the mainnet in 2026, and we are excited about the progress made. There will be more exciting developments in technology, partnerships, and our eventual mainnet launch.

I would also like to elaborate a bit more on the status of CCTP. Clearly, we have achieved very strong year-over-year growth, with a significant increase in the number of transactions occurring on this network. But I want to draw your attention to the market share of CCTP. You can see here that **for USDC, CCTP accounts for nearly all cross-chain transfers of USDC, and we have also reached over 50% of the total cross-chain bridging volume of all cross-chain assets we track (not just USDC). In fact, in January, this volume reached 62%.** CCTP is becoming a key infrastructure for how value moves on the internet, and we are excited about the progress we have made in CCTP and in interoperability infrastructure through the acquisition of Interop Labs. Through these advancements, we are building new capabilities aimed at helping various types of asset issuers, whether you are issuing tokenized stocks, tokenized funds, tokenized bank deposits, or new stablecoins, to leverage this powerful interoperability infrastructure to enable your assets to transfer value seamlessly on the highways built by Circle for moving value on the internet. We see interoperability infrastructure as a huge opportunity We also saw strong growth in other digital assets from Circle. In the fourth quarter, EURC reached €310 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.8 times, and has grown by 25% since the end of the quarter, reaching €389 million as of February 20. This reflects the increasing demand for regulated euro-denominated stablecoins, with EURC remaining the largest euro stablecoin. Our tokenized money market fund USYC has also seen strong growth since the third quarter. We acquired USYC in January last year. We integrated it into Circle and developed new product and distribution strategies around it, focusing on tokenized collateral for digital asset exchanges. With the relaunch of USYC, we have seen accelerated growth due to the demand for USYC as collateral on leading exchanges like finance and others. USYC assets were approximately $1.5 billion at the end of the year and have continued to grow since the end of the quarter, currently exceeding $1.7 billion.

In terms of our application pillar, **the Circle Payments Network continues to expand. We have 55 registered financial institutions, up from 29 in the third quarter.** There are currently 74 financial institutions undergoing qualification review, and we maintain a strong pipeline, attracting interest from hundreds of banks, payment companies, and other institutions worldwide. We are continuously expanding the markets available for CPN, with real-time trading flows now in 14 markets across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Importantly, CPN transaction volume continues to grow, with an annualized trading volume of $5.7 billion based on the past 30 days as of February 20. This represents an increase of approximately 68% since our third-quarter earnings update. We are heavily investing in product development for CPN and have a strong pipeline of upcoming countries/regions, expecting to add 11 new markets in the coming months.

We also launched a production test version of StableFX. This combines institutional-level forex execution with on-chain atomic settlement, enabling capital-efficient currency exchange and streamlined risk management 24/7. Stablecoin issuers from many jurisdictions are involved, and we are excited to launch this application alongside Arc, which will benefit the entire digital asset ecosystem while providing critical infrastructure as we continue to expand CPN.

I want to specifically talk about Circle's situation regarding AI. **We are seeing explosive growth in developer activity around AI, which is becoming a significant driver for the Circle platform, and we believe it is also an important and potentially huge driver for USDC adoption.** We have some initiatives in this area. As many may have seen, when the new open-source autonomous agent system OpenClaw emerged, we quickly responded by hosting a hackathon exclusively for agents, where agents competed against each other to build innovative applications using USDC, and the winners were voted on by the agents themselves. We saw incredible participation We are still building systems to better support agent-based payments. In fact, we have just launched a testnet version of a new capability through Circle Gateway, **which allows agents to autonomously and programmatically automate cross-chain USDC transactions at a transaction cost of only one-tenth of a cent.** This has gone live on our testnet, and we are excited about the possibilities it brings for agent-based payments and monetization models on the internet. **We believe there is no other payment system in the world that can do this.** We are also investing in helping developers who are building AI agents and using AI for their own development, enabling them to build faster and smarter with Circle products. We are bringing our capabilities as an infrastructure provider into the skill set, providing servers that allow developer tools and AI agents to directly use Circle products, and we are seeing good uptake in this area.

Now, internally at Circle, AI is also becoming the foundational infrastructure for all our functions. Like many companies, we began our AI-related work over the past two years, and our investments in this area are accelerating. We are embedding core AI infrastructure and automation as key components of all our operations, agent infrastructure, professional tools, and specific AI scripts. We are building governance mechanisms that enable all our employees to self-serve, develop, deploy, and use AI agents to fulfill their functions. We are deepening the integration of AI across all aspects of our product development, design, engineering, and deployment lifecycle, and we are seeing very strong results. Our product development speed is accelerating, and I expect this pace to continue with the exponential improvements brought by AI coding agents.

Now, I personally believe that AI platforms, AI agents, and blockchain-based economic operating systems will support trusted, automated, transparent, and ultra-efficient infrastructures, which will become the foundation of the future global economic system. I believe this will be one of the most accelerated periods of technological transformation in world history, and it is incredibly exciting to be able to build the core infrastructure that will help support this new economic system. **I have never been more excited about Circle's market position, platform stack, and our growth opportunities than I am now.**

With that, I would like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen to walk you through our financial performance.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, Chief Financial Officer:

Thank you, Jeremy, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report that we achieved strong financial performance in the fourth quarter and for the entire fiscal year, capping off an exceptionally strong year of growth and momentum for Circle. I will first review the quarter and then provide our forward-looking guidance. **The year-end USDC circulation was $75.3 billion, a year-over-year increase of 72%, and notably, the growth rate exceeded that of the entire fiat-backed stablecoin market. The USDC held within Circle's platform infrastructure, or platform USDC, grew 5.6 times year-over-year to $12.5 billion, accounting for 17% of the total circulation.** The reserve return rate for the fourth quarter was 3.81%, a year-on-year decrease of 68 basis points, reflecting the decline in SOFR during this period.\*\*

**Total revenue and reserve income for this quarter increased by 77% year-on-year, reaching $770 million, with the growth in average USDC circulation and other income partially offset by the lower reserve return rate. Total distribution transactions and other costs increased by 52% year-on-year, reaching $461 million. I would like to remind everyone that the distribution costs for the fourth quarter of 2024 include a one-time payment of $60 million to a large distribution partner that was previously disclosed.**

The profit margin after deducting distribution costs from revenue in the fourth quarter was 40.1%, a moderate increase of 0.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, mainly reflecting the impact of growth in other income. Other income in the fourth quarter increased to $37 million. Subscription and service revenue for the fourth quarter was $24.7 million, primarily from revenue related to our blockchain network partnerships. Transaction revenue was $12.2 million, mainly from blockchain reward income, which significantly increased as Canton Coin began trading this quarter, and our income as a super validator on the Canton network rose sharply.

**In the fourth quarter, total revenue minus distribution, transaction, and other costs increased by 136% year-on-year, reaching $309 million.** Adjusted operating expenses for this quarter increased by 32% year-on-year, reaching $144 million, as we continued to invest in expanding our platform and distribution at this critical moment in the industry. Adjusted operating expenses included payroll taxes, including payroll taxes related to stock compensation, which amounted to $8.4 million in the fourth quarter, whereas we had no such expenses in the same period last year.

Starting from the first quarter of 2026, we have revised the definition of adjusted operating expenses. First, to align with how we handle stock compensation expenses, payroll tax expenses related to stock compensation have been excluded. Second, certain one-time legal fees, acquisition-related costs, and related restructuring expenses, which totaled $2.9 million in the fourth quarter, have been excluded, as they are the same as the adjustments in our adjusted EBITDA metric. Under this definition, adjusted operating expenses for the fourth quarter would be $133 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 28% on a comparable basis. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 412% year-on-year, reaching $167 million, reflecting the inherent operational leverage in our model. The adjusted EBITDA from the previous year included the one-time distribution payment I mentioned earlier. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the fourth quarter was 54%.

I would like to take a moment to briefly review our guidance and performance for the fiscal year 2025. First, regarding our guidance philosophy. We are building our business for long-term success, and several of our most influential performance drivers are visible to the market in real-time. Therefore, we do not provide detailed quarterly or annual financial guidance. We only provide guidance on certain metrics to help our investors better understand our expected performance trajectory. We will update this guidance when we anticipate that performance will materially deviate from it **At the end of the year, the circulation of USDC increased by 72% year-on-year. Other income for fiscal year 2025 is $110 million, exceeding our guidance of $90 million to $100 million.** The fourth quarter performance was better than expected, primarily due to the $7 million revenue generated from the trading of Canton Coin. The profit margin for RLDC in fiscal year 2025 is 39.4%, surpassing our guidance of approximately 38%. The profit margin in the fourth quarter exceeded expectations, mainly due to strong performance in other income and sustained reserve profit margins. Adjusted operating expenses for fiscal year 2025 are $508 million, in line with guidance.

Finally, I would like to discuss our guidance for fiscal year 2026. We do not provide guidance on USDC circulation or growth. We are at the beginning of a significant transformation in the global currency market, and we expect both long-term growth and quarterly fluctuations. **As mentioned earlier, we anticipate that USDC will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40% over a multi-year cross-cycle period. We expect other income for fiscal year 2026 to be between $150 million and $170 million. We expect the profit margin for RLDC in fiscal year 2026 to be between 38% and 40%.** We anticipate adjusted operating expenses for fiscal year 2026 to be between $570 million and $585 million, reflecting increased investment in building our platform, capabilities, and global partnerships.

As previously mentioned, starting from the first quarter of 2026, adjusted operating expenses will exclude payroll tax expenses related to stock compensation (totaling $20.6 million for fiscal year 2025), as well as certain one-time legal fees, acquisition-related costs, and related restructuring expenses (totaling $10 million for fiscal year 2025). Our guidance range for 2026 reflects this definitional change, and the comparable figure of $478 million for fiscal year 2025 on this page also reflects this.

Overall, we are concluding a pivotal year for Circle with meaningful growth and strong profitability. We are just beginning to seize the opportunities before us, and we remain excited about the future. I want to thank the Circle team for their continued hard work and our investors and analysts for their support and engagement.

With that, operator, we can now begin the Q&A portion of the conference call.

**Q&A Session**

Operator:

Your first question comes from Devin Ryan of Citizens Bank. Please go ahead.

Devin Ryan, Analyst:

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I want to start with this agency-like evolution. Yes, I think it's a compelling case. I just want to understand how you see this unfolding over time. Does it start with trading liquidity and then evolve into payments, lending, etc.? How do you see that? And how do you ensure that USDC is at the core of it? Technically, can Arc perform well relative to other Layer-1s to support this? Thank you Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and CEO:

Thank you. That's a great question, and we've spent a lot of time on this. When we designed Arc and announced and launched the testnet, we specifically talked about this agent-based economic activity, viewing it as a fundamental design center for how we see autonomous software, autonomous agents, and other economic activities on the internet. This somewhat illustrates the larger context of the company's early vision regarding programmable money and what it enables, as well as machine-mediated money and what it allows. We really see this convergence happening. Therefore, our journey began not only with the design of Arc but also with USDC, where we ensured participation in all key agent-based payment and value transfer standards, contributing to the so-called x402 standard, which is the agent-based payment standard from Google. We are members of the AI Agent Alliance. So, we have been involved in this, but something really significant happened about a month ago, related to Claude, Claude Code, now known as OpenClaw, where we truly saw an incredible leap in the ability of ordinary people and professional developers to launch agents to perform an extremely wide range of tasks. Obviously, we have all seen this in the market. Interestingly, we see direct and immediate pickup, **AI agents and those developers of AI agents realizing that agent-to-agent transactions require reliable, low-cost, and trustworthy exchange mediums. Therefore, almost all AI payment infrastructure we see, agent-to-agent type activities are happening on the blockchain. It is happening alongside USDC. So, this is very, very encouraging, and we are doubling down in a quite significant way.**

Now, regarding the other part of your question, how long will this take? I mean, I think this is one of the biggest known unknowns, or however you want to phrase it, which is whether we are experiencing a moment of takeoff. Yesterday, the Kurzweil Brothers talked about how we—Q1 2026 could be the moment of takeoff for the singularity, and we might look back at that moment in the future. I think the technological shifts we have been experiencing are signaling some kind of takeoff. This leads to various uses, namely AI agents consuming work from other AI agents, that kind of collaboration between AI agents, AI agents assigning work to humans, and humans consuming things from AI agents. All of this is happening. **Just in the past few weeks, we have seen the AI agent market launch, where AI agents can hire human workers to perform tasks and get paid in USDC as the exchange medium.** We see AI job boards where AI can hire each other and use USDC as the payment method. So, this is happening very organically. From our perspective, as businesses and startups build products around agent-based economic activities, they will naturally choose to operate on stablecoins and blockchains, which leads to part of your other question regarding Arc Arc is specifically built for this moment. Arc is built on a validation and consensus model that can support scale. Arc is built on an economic model that allows us to reduce transaction costs in high-performance channels to one-hundredth of a cent. In fact, we just launched a feature last week in the testnet designed specifically for autonomous agents, called Circle Gateway, which will allow autonomous agents to hold balances and spend on Arc and other networks, with transaction costs of one-hundredth of a cent, transferring value to all other applications and services on these networks in less than a second.

So, we are building primitives. We are building it at the operating system level, at the infrastructure level, we are building tools, and we are actually marketing to those autonomous entities that want to build things. So, we have more to roll out in this area, and we are very pleased. And I think we—again, we talk about monetary velocity, and how networks and infrastructures like the one we are building will effectively lead to higher monetary velocity, I personally believe, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, in a world with tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of AI agents, the velocity of money will be several orders of magnitude higher than the velocity in the existing economic system. So, we are building a new economic infrastructure. **We are building a new internet financial system, and I believe we are very optimistic that Circle can play a very key role in the convergence of AI, stablecoins, and blockchain.**

Devin Ryan, Analyst:

Yes. Thank you, Jeremy. Great response, and it will be very interesting to focus on this evolution. Perhaps just a quicker follow-up question, but what updates do you have regarding the Arc token? How is that progressing? And then, do you have a sense of timing on when you might make a decision about whether to launch a token for Arc?

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Yes, there are a few things to say. I think we are continuing to explore the Arc token. I think it is a very good exploration. **We are gaining a good understanding of how tokens can play a key role in incentivizing stakeholders, governance, security, utility, etc., on the Arc network. So, this exploration is still ongoing.** We have not announced any specific timelines or other information because we are still in the exploratory phase. But as mentioned, we have made tremendous progress on Arc, and we have made very strong progress on the Arc mainnet, and we are very excited to see it put into use. We expect to see some amazing companies participating in running the Arc infrastructure, deploying applications on the Arc infrastructure, and providing foundational infrastructure for asset issuers and AI agents, as well as a variety of use cases. So, we are pleased with the progress. Of course, when we have more information to share, we will share it publicly Devin Ryan, Analyst:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator:

Your next question comes from Joseph Vafi of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Joseph Vafi, Analyst:

Hey everyone. Progress is good. Maybe we can just talk a little bit about the regulatory backdrop, Jeremy and Jeremy. The GENIUS Act has now been in effect for several quarters. I just wanted to know what specific signs of progress you have seen from GENIUS? And then the follow-up question is about the Clarity Act, where do we stand now, and what are your thoughts? Clearly, stablecoins are at the center of compromise and discussion. So, your comments and thoughts. Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Sure. First, regarding GENIUS. **GENIUS absolutely continues to be a tailwind for our business and the entire industry. It creates a legal foundation for large institutions to enter this market.** We have seen follow-up guidance from agencies like the SEC and CFTC as they clarify how stablecoins that meet GENIUS standards can be used as collateral in CFTC markets. The recent SEC guidance on how broker-dealers handle haircuts on stablecoins is a significant breakthrough in how stablecoins can be used in capital markets. I can say that, broadly speaking, banks, payment companies, tech companies, and large enterprises around the world are actively engaging and looking to integrate stablecoins into their product strategies. So, this has also spread to international markets, and international regulators are saying, well, we now need to recognize that stablecoins that meet GENIUS standards are the kind of good stablecoins that can be allowed in their markets, which is very favorable from our perspective. So, we see this as very positive, and as it takes effect, and as some OCC licenses start to get approved, it will impact large issuers like Circle, and it will continue to be positive.

Regarding Clarity, I mean, Clarity is very close to the finish line now. I know we are very close to reaching an agreement. There have been a lot of reports. I think the recent reports seem to be accurate, that the cryptocurrency industry and the banking sector are working at the staff level and collaborating with the White House day by day, week by week, to reach some compromise language regarding the different types of rewards that people might receive from holding or using stablecoins and how they use those rewards. My sense is that everyone wants to resolve this issue. It has a lot of benefits for banks, capital markets, asset management companies, and the cryptocurrency industry. So right now, I am cautiously optimistic about this, but obviously, DC is DC, and all the dynamics of spring and everything else, speculating on these things is not my job; some analysts at your firm might do better at that. But we are cautiously optimistic, and we do believe that **if the Clarity Act can indeed pass on a bipartisan basis, it would be another important unlocking in building in this space.** \*\* Of course, we will talk about this in the future, but we believe this is a very, very important unlocking for the development of this market and the use of blockchain in broader applications.

Joseph Vafi, Analyst:

Of course. Thank you very much, Jeremy.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO: You're welcome.

Operator:

Your next question comes from John Todaro of Needham. Please go ahead.

John Todaro, Analyst:

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to go back to Arc, and maybe CCTP as well. It seems like the long-term evolution of these could become somewhat asset-agnostic, or it could just be a broad asset tokenization platform for providing equity assurance for certain other assets. I was wondering, yes, Jeremy, what are your thoughts on that kind of long-term evolution, and if we could dive a little deeper into the long-term vision?

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Yes, certainly. So for us, the conceptual model of Arc is that it is an economic operating system. It is a distributed economic operating system. This distributed economic operating system will be operated by a set of well-known leading financial infrastructure companies, including Circle, which will run the infrastructure to support computation, transactions, and data on these networks. It is designed for prudent and robust financial activities and economic activities. We believe this is necessary for building a real economy on the internet. However, within that, we want to ensure that as a secure and robust foundation, it has several elements that are important to financial system participants. **We want to ensure it has the most capital-efficient digital dollar liquidity in the world.** Therefore, by combining the work we do through USDC with what we can achieve through Arc technology, we believe we can create the world's most capital-efficient and fast digital dollar liquidity model.

The second point, which relates to another aspect, **we do see Arc as a liquidity and distribution hub for other asset issuers.** Therefore, we are building technology that builds on the incredible distribution we have already created through CCTP. The technology we are building will allow asset issuers, whether tokenized equity, tokenized funds, tokenized bank deposits, other stablecoin issuers, and any imaginable asset that can be tokenized, to issue on Arc and then unlock liquidity and distribution on other blockchain networks. So, if I issue a tokenized stock, I want that tokenized stock to be able to trade on Robinhood's L2, on Coinbase's chain exchange, and in some other tokenized environments that support these assets. Asset issuers really need to know they can do this in a secure and liquid way and have that distribution. So, we are building the highway. CCTP accounted for over 60% of all traffic across these different networks in January Through the new technology we are introducing with Arc, we believe we can illuminate these highways for any asset issuer. So again, back to the vision, broadly speaking, this is a universal operating system for economic activities on the internet. As we enter the market, in this environment, we have demand from those who want to build very, very cost-efficient and capital-efficient AI trading, and we have demand from those who want to build tokenized applications and gain liquidity and distribution for those applications. We believe Arc and our interoperability infrastructure will be very well suited for this environment.

John Todaro, Analyst:

Great. Very helpful. Then I just want to follow up, going back to the comments about agent-based AI, I agree with your perspective. Just in terms of the way some cryptocurrency stocks are traded and the general cryptocurrency token market. Do you think the excitement around agent-based AI and payments (inaudible) in these ecosystems will extend beyond stablecoins and Arc? Could this become a universal tailwind for the industry?

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

I mean, I think this is one of the most exciting convergence points, and obviously, I’m biased, but I think this is one of the most exciting convergence points. If I were a developer building AI agents, I would want to build AI agents that can contract with other agents, contract with humans, potentially generate disputes, require data proofs or proofs of what has happened, need to execute those contracts and transfer funds. If I were to consider building an organization made up of some humans and some AI agents, and I wanted to build the underlying governance mechanism for its operation, **blockchain infrastructure would be the way to achieve all of this.** We need cryptographic proofs. That’s the only thing that can allow us to trust the activities, data, and transactions of these agents. So, we see this in our developer activities. We see this in the engagement of Arc developers, with founders from the AI space realizing this is like a very, very helpful backend. If you think back to other major platform shifts, there’s often this two-sided coin; you saw the rise of mobile, which obviously created the surface area for applications, corresponding to the rise of cloud platforms, which can actually serve as the backend for mobile and extend the backend. So, they are complementary. Therefore, I am very confident that starting now, really from 2026 onward, AI platforms and these blockchain operating system platforms will be a match made in heaven for those looking to build for this new AI-driven economic system.

John Todaro, Analyst:

Thank you for all of this, and congratulations on a strong quarter.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO: Thank you.

Operator:

Your next question comes from Pete Christiansen of Citi. Please go ahead Peter Christiansen, Analyst:

Thank you. Good morning. Impressive rapid progress has been made in multiple areas, and the competitive moat looks stronger than ever. Jeremy, I wonder if you could provide some foundational information on the onboarding and traffic of PPN, perhaps the initial use cases, how sticky it is, the growth of each FI partner, etc.? Then as a follow-up question, regarding the discussion on agent-based commerce, this looks very intriguing; how should investors think about how this opportunity transforms Circle's operational/financial model? Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Sure. So, regarding CPN, as you can see from the results, we are seeing very, very stable and strong growth on the key metrics we are focused on. When we launched it last June, it was at zero, with no financial institutions or only a few, and the technology was just getting started. We have been making progress through product iterations and business iterations. As mentioned, we now have 55 financial institutions on the network, a significant increase quarter-over-quarter, and we hope the number of financial institutions wanting to join the network continues to grow strongly. Then regarding traffic, I can describe it in more detail; traffic has also increased. So, from zero to an annualized TPV of about $5.7 billion as of last Friday, which has grown 68% since we last communicated with you. We are very pleased with what we are seeing. A few points I want to make are that more and more large companies—those that can support larger traffic—are joining the network, which is a key goal for us.

From a product perspective, we want to increase the speed of everything happening, the speed at which these members join, implement, and operate. For many financial institutions, they have never engaged with blockchain or stablecoins before. Therefore, we need to simplify how they do that. Then ensure that the channels with the highest demand have good redundancy and good participants. But what we are seeing from a use case perspective is that B2B cross-border merchant settlement is the main driver. We see in some markets, not surprisingly, exporters from Asia and importers from other emerging and developed markets. We see some application processes that are very clear, which can be South-South and South-North remittance applications. So, we are seeing the use cases we want to see. There will definitely be more in the future. Again, we are very pleased with the success. I mentioned in the earnings call that we have a lot of product investment in this area. We have ambitious goals for how far we can expand this. Ultimately, obviously, when this starts to reach a more meaningful scale, we can begin to monetize it, and our partners have already started to monetize it. So, that's some information about CPN.

Then regarding agent-based and its impact on us. We consider this from several angles. I think, first, it is an important new demand driver for the utility of our stablecoin network. Therefore, \*\*AI agents as consumers, in a sense, are driving stablecoin transaction volume, driving stablecoin balances, and driving stablecoins into more non-crypto-native businesses and use cases that are interacting with this new agent-based economy \*\* I believe this is a way for us to accelerate entry into other types of software-based institutions that realize their products need to be consumable by AI agents and may have different pricing and economic models, and the standards we are building around agent-based payments may play a role in this. But this could also fundamentally drive traffic and growth on Arc. Over time, as we have pointed out, we believe Arc can create new transaction-based revenue streams. Therefore, its speed and scale are still premature, but we think it could be very significant over time. These are a few points among many, and I think as things develop, we will obviously have more to say, but what we have seen in the past three to four weeks has been truly eye-opening, and we are pleased that we already have ready-made products and technologies available, and we have been working on some standards in this area for a while, which can be said to be prepared for this moment of takeoff that seems to be happening.

Peter Christiansen, Analyst:

Thank you. Very helpful information. Thank you.

Operator:

Your next question comes from Dan Dolev of Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Dan Dolev, Analyst:

Hey, Circle team. Jeremy, great performance here. Glad to see it. Congratulations. I want to ask you about the prediction markets and the opportunities you have with Polymarket. Overall, why is USDC so critical to this rapidly growing segment? What can we expect from this very interesting partnership in the coming quarters and years? Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Dan, that's a great question. I mean, when we think about the adoption of our stablecoin network and our broader infrastructure, we are often asked, well, what are the killer applications? We have many different killer applications emerging. We see cross-border payments as one of them. Obviously, historically, it has been cryptocurrency trading, and we see agent-based applications emerging, tokenization, and so on. But prediction markets are definitely one of them. We are very fortunate that we made a big bet early on in the on-chain ecosystem. Therefore, USDC is systemic and critical for many on-chain applications built over the past three, four, five years. Polymarket is one of them. So, with Polymarket, we are able to work closely together to advance how they use our technology, improve their customers' experience, and enhance what they can offer to users, making it a more seamless experience. But what USDC and our infrastructure do for prediction markets like Polymarket is that people want to be able to act quickly. The nature of markets (especially prediction markets) is that they are information markets, and people want to be able to act quickly. Therefore, stablecoins provide the ability for end-users and those looking to participate in these markets to provide collateral and settle at internet speed, and they can do so from many different wallets and many different markets around the world Therefore, it has opened up global access in a more seamless way and provided a solid infrastructure for companies like Polymarket to store and present these to users.

Now, USDC is being used as a way to fund your Kalshi account. USDC supports the prediction markets of Coinbase. You can use USDC to fund accounts on Kraken or Robinhood, and clearly, they are offering prediction markets. So, there is more to watch here, and we hope to work with leading participants to ensure that the best digital dollar, whether for settlement or collateral, can be used in these places, and that world-leading participants adopt this and build on it with us, which we believe is a very positive win. Clearly, everyone is watching the growth and success of Polymarket, which is quite remarkable, and these markets are still in the early stages.

Dan Dolev, Analyst:

Yes, very impressive. Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO: Thank you, Dan.

Operator:

Thank you. Your next question comes from Ken Worthington of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Ken Worthington, Analyst:

Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Regarding the rise of USDC on the Circle platform to 17% in the fourth quarter. When we consider 2026 and the new initiatives you are undertaking, what is a reasonable range for this mix that Circle could achieve, and what relationships or initiatives are most likely to be the biggest drivers of incremental USDC on the platform over the next 12 to 24 months?

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Thank you, Ken. We are very pleased with the year-over-year growth of 5 times, and there are a few points. I think first, we are continuing to build valuable infrastructure products for holding and using USDC. We are doing this in our wallet products, we are doing this in products like Circle Gateway, we are doing this in Circle Mint, and in many places where we interact with customers, developers, and those building on top of us. The fundamental premise here is that more and more major institutions, whether financial institutions or others, want to build on our infrastructure. For example, Arc is a driving factor because Arc is our infrastructure that will connect well with Mint, Wallets, Gateway, and other infrastructures. Therefore, these can work together to drive more applications, more flows of funds, and more stock of funds to use Circle technology. This helps to increase the volume of USDC on the platform. So, in many ways, this is just continuing to establish these institutional partnerships with these diverse companies, which will continue to help us grow I want to say that this is about the macro level of this issue. Clearly, we have not provided any guidance in this area. But I think you have already seen the direction of development. We continue to focus on building excellent infrastructure that people want to build on. One more thing to note is that we have received conditional approval from Circle National Trust Bank (First National Digital Currency Bank), which is obviously important for USDC and USDC reserves, and ultimately important for how we collaborate with the OCC under the GENIUS Act. It can also strengthen the custody infrastructure we provide to market participants. Therefore, you can expect us to pursue this. And I think that when we build it as a fiduciary with certain protections brought by a trust bank, along with security and operational mechanisms, we believe this will be beneficial for our platform's capabilities as we move out in the coming quarters.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, Chief Financial Officer:

Yes, I just want to add one thing. Jeremy talked about the expansion of our platform infrastructure and the products we have that make it easier for world-leading companies to build on Circle's platform and technology. But I also want to add that all the other infrastructure we build to support everything we do is also part of it. Our extensive global banking and liquidity infrastructure is unparalleled in the stablecoin space. The broad network of users, developers, and other businesses built on USDC will only make any additional major enterprise more inclined to choose to use USPC. Of course, we are positioned as neutral market infrastructure. We do not compete with any businesses and developers building for their customers on top of our infrastructure.

Ken Worthington, Analyst:

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator:

Your next question comes from Jeff Cantwell of Seaport Research. Please go ahead.

Jeff Cantwell, Analyst:

Hey, thank you very much. I'll start with two questions. First, I would like to know if you could tell us the components of the $150 million to $170 million other income guidance for this year. What has driven the growth? Could you break it down for us compared to 2025? Then again about Arc, just to feel more reassured about the strategy and rollout as you get closer to the mainnet launch. Would you mind discussing the rollout plans at a high level after the mainnet goes live? I think I'm just curious if you foresee a world where certain elements of Arc and certain elements of CPN could merge together to provide more value for customers and your clients? Thank you very much.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will answer the second question first, and then Jeremy Fox-Geen will answer the first question. Regarding the Arc mainnet, there are a few points First of all, we are making significant progress. As mentioned earlier, the technical infrastructure of the test network has been very strong. With robust usage, growth in transactions and activities, as well as developer engagement, we are very satisfied. When we consider the transition from the test network to the main network, we focus on several key aspects. Firstly, we still want to ensure that all users of the Arc network can access certain technologies before entering the main network, and I mentioned some exciting technologies. So, these relate to things that are valuable for institutions engaged in tokenization and for AI agents operating on such networks. Therefore, we have some technologies to deliver. But importantly, we have publicly stated that the first phase of the Arc main network will be what is called proof of authority validation, which is actually to introduce the first batch of strategic partners that will run the Arc network infrastructure with us. We want to ensure that we have world-class financial infrastructure companies running the infrastructure with us. So, if you are a developer, or you are an institution, or you are an end user, you will understand that the Arc network is operated by some of the world's leading financial infrastructure companies, which is crucial not only for trust and reliability but also for governance and how we think about this in the future. So, this is a key part.

The second point is that we are working closely with the entire digital asset ecosystem, including enterprise tools, custody, wallets, exchanges, and so on, to ensure that everyone is ready from day one. So, we want to give everyone time to prepare all their infrastructure. This includes deep integration with Circle's existing product stack, so that, for example, when we launch the main network on day one, the liquidity of USDC is the best in the world, the most capital-efficient in the world, and becomes an attractive way for value flowing on the internet to move through Arc. So, there is work to be done. Collaborating with mainstream companies in the test network group we announced, these companies are committed to launching products on Arc and ensuring that we have the right use case mix in capital markets, payments, foreign exchange, agency, and so on. Therefore, getting all of this ready is key.

Then regarding the last part of your question, Arc will be a key infrastructure for CPN. Arc will provide very strong infrastructure for speed, reliability, prudent security and robustness, and efficiency. It simplifies the process because people only need to hold stablecoins to use it. But it also has all the interoperability features built in. So, Arc has top-notch interoperability. Therefore, if an endpoint on CPN needs to interact with wallets on different networks, Arc actually provides these members on CPN with the ability to easily transition to those other networks. Thus, Arc becomes the backend for CPN, and StableFX (a key application natively running on Arc) will also become the foreign exchange backend supporting Arc transactions. Therefore, transactions between euros and dollars, or euros and pesos, or dirhams and pesos, whichever you choose, we will bring other stablecoins into Arc and introduce other stablecoins and market makers into StableFX, which will enable us to provide real-time atomic swaps of cross-currency liquidity, speeding up conversions and settlement and settlement guarantees, reducing the amount of capital people need to occupy, and so on Therefore, Arc, StableFX, CPN, and Circle Mint are working together to support what we believe are key matters as we enter the Arc mainnet.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, Chief Financial Officer:

Jeff, I'll take the first part of the question. So, other income for this quarter was $37 million—$36.8 million, of which about $25 million came from subscription and service revenue, and $12 million came from transaction revenue. Within these categories, the largest portion of revenue we earned from subscription and service revenue came from our blockchain network partnerships, which include both prepaid and recurring components. We've talked about how the prepaid portion depends on the number of integrations and partnerships we achieve, which may have fluctuations between quarters, as well as how potential recurring revenue accumulates over time as we increasingly bring these online and execute that strong pipeline. This also includes management fees for the USYC tokenized money market fund, which is currently relatively small but clearly has potential in the future. In transaction revenue, as I believe we've mentioned before, it includes several different components. There are fees from value-added products, such as rapid redemptions of USDC and CCTP rapid transfers. This is where you'll see Circle Payments Network generating fees in the future. Additionally, we operate validator infrastructure, which I mentioned in my opening remarks, particularly in this quarter, due to the trading, listing, and stock price fluctuations of Canton Coin, we recognized exceptionally high revenue this quarter, especially from this item. Now, we do not provide guidance on these components. The monetization forms of all these monetizable products and services will actually only really start from Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 and beyond. So, these products are still in a very, very early stage. But considering this revenue line has only a one-year history, we are very pleased with achieving $110 million for the year.

Jeff Cantwell, Analyst:

Great. Thank you.

Operator:

Your next question comes from Ken Suchoski of Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Kenneth Suchoski, Analyst:

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Circle has seen some nice leverage on distribution costs. I want to focus on that. I mean, the agreement with Coinbase is one aspect, but I’d like to understand your latest thoughts on distribution costs outside of Coinbase and how those discussions are progressing, as those non-Coinbase distribution costs have remained quite stable over the past few quarters. So, any updates would be appreciated. Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO: Yes, I can answer part of that, and if Jeremy wants to add, he can. I believe we are in a very favorable position because USDC has the advantage of its network effects, meaning that if you are building a product or service and you want a compliant, liquid, available, and interoperable digital dollar, USDC is the preferred choice. So what we are seeing is that many, many products being built and launched are using USDC and connecting to our stablecoin network, driving demand and liquidity. This is valuable for those products. These products are essentially leveraging this globally available, nearly free dollar payment system. Therefore, when this organically happens, this developer-driven, institution-driven organic flywheel drives the growth of USDC and these institutions, and we do not need to engage in incentive transactions or other things with them. So, as we said, we are disciplined about where we think it makes sense to establish incentive relationships, where it makes sense, and where we can see partners actually driving growth and meaningful growth. So we consider factors like where growth is and where meaningful growth is. I think this helps us maintain the strength of the fundamental unit economics that we can sustain here. That’s the big picture. Jeremy may have other additions.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, Chief Financial Officer:

Yes, I would like to add a few points to this important strategic narrative, which is that the growth of USDC achieved through distribution partners (some of which are incentivized) will also lead to an enhancement of the potential network effects around USDC, which I mentioned earlier in this call. This makes other market participants more inclined to independently build and use USDC and offer USDC-based products and services to their customers. The fundamental point is that any distribution relationships we have will also enhance USDC that is not influenced by any distribution relationships or any incentive partnerships. This is how the foundational network has the strength of network effects to impact our RLDC margins and our fundamental economics.

Kenneth Suchoski, Analyst:

Great. Thank you both.

Operator:

Your next question comes from James Faucette of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

James Faucette, Analyst:

Great. Thank you very much. I want to return to your comments about AI hackathons and the like. How do you see Circle becoming an integral part of the to-do list for many of those evolving payment networks, especially when there are clearly other players or solutions like Ethereum or the broader cryptocurrency space? Just wondering what our advantages and disadvantages are in an agency world and how we establish our position? Thank you.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO: Of course. Thank you for your question. I would like to point out a few things. First, Circle has made significant investments over the past four to five years to ensure that our stablecoin network and the pipelines supporting USDC distribution, liquidity, and settlement are available on as many blockchain network platforms as possible. We are on over 30 blockchain networks. This is crucial because developers building applications will build on the networks where their agents may anchor, which could be Ethereum, as you know, or Solana, or Arc, or a new chain that has yet to emerge. There are exciting new blockchains on the horizon.

I believe we all agree that if you consider blockchain networks as economic operating systems, we are still in the early stages of their expansion to the kind of transaction speeds demanded by AI. So, first, we are already operating on these networks today. In fact, we co-authored and participated in almost all key agent-based payment standards, such as x402 and ERC-8004 (for those who are not familiar, this is somewhat jargon, but basically these are agent-related standards), and nearly all of them, I think I saw a statistic, I might be mistaken, but basically, in the recent period measured for agent-based payments, 99% were conducted in USDC.

Therefore, by being present on all these networks, by participating in standard-setting, and by deploying in these ways, we have a first-mover advantage. We also ensure that all our APIs and all our protocols are directly provided as skill sets to agent-based coding systems and as MCP servers so that AI developer tools can seamlessly integrate into them. So, these are all things we started investing in some time ago, and now as we reach this takeoff moment, these investments are paying off. So, we are satisfied with these aspects. And I think now, many companies really realize that, for example, if you are a SaaS company, you realize, well, maybe we won’t sell end-user seats, but we will sell access to our capabilities in the form of APIs to AI agents.

Many companies are trying to figure out, well, how do you market to the roaming AI agent crowd, is there a market for AI to find things they can use? So, distribution in the world of AI agents is a new thing. As you pointed out, shortly after the (inaudible) launch, we chose to see an opportunity to have AI agents compete against each other in a hackathon, voting on each other, which is a first of its kind, and I think it was a powerful marketing campaign, and that batch of AI agents now has a good understanding of USDC. Therefore, over time, you can expect to see us do more similar things. But on a technical level, back to the point, we believe Arc, as infrastructure, will become a very attractive high-throughput infrastructure due to its USDC-centric capabilities, capital efficiency, interoperability, and cost efficiency of transactions, and we will increase our investment in this area James Faucette, Analyst:

Thank you, everyone.

Operator:

There are currently no other questions. With that, I will now turn the call over to John Andrews for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

John Andrews, Vice President of Capital Markets and Investor Relations:

Yes, great. Kelvin, thank you very much. For those who were unable to ask questions through the Q&A line, we would be happy to follow up with you later today. Again, we appreciate your attention and participation this morning and look forward to connecting with you soon.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO:

Thank you, everyone.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, Chief Financial Officer:

Thank you.

Operator:

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

The market carries risks, and investments should be made cautiously. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment goals, financial situation, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Investment decisions are made at your own risk

### Related Stocks

- [CRCA.US - ProShares Ultra CRCL ETF](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/CRCA.US.md)
- [BLOK.US - Amplify Transform Data Sharing ETF](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BLOK.US.md)
- [CRCL.US - Circle](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/CRCL.US.md)
- [COIN.US - Coinbase](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/COIN.US.md)
- [CRCG.US - Leverage Shares 2X Long CRCL Daily ETF](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/CRCG.US.md)
- [GLXY.US - Galaxy Digital](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GLXY.US.md)

## Related News & Research

| Title | Description | URL |
|-------|-------------|-----|
| Circle surges 35%, fueling a crypto rebound; Circle becomes a beneficiary of AI panic. | Circle's stock surged 35.47%, marking its largest single-day gain, as the cryptocurrency market rebounded from a recent  | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/277007004.md) |
| Bank of Korea Pushes Bank-Controlled Won Stablecoins as Lawmakers Stall on Digital Currency Bill | The Bank of Korea (BOK) is advocating for a bank-led model for issuing won-pegged stablecoins amid a legislative deadloc | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276690746.md) |
| Why Smart Money Buys When AI Stocks Pull Back | Why Smart Money Buys When AI Stocks Pull Back | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276517144.md) |
| Circle Internet Group Q4 revenue beats on higher onchain transaction volume | Circle Internet Group reported a 77% increase in Q4 revenue, surpassing analyst expectations, with adjusted EBITDA growi | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276878826.md) |
| Why learning to 'speak AI' can help your money manager beat the market | The article discusses the importance of learning to 'speak AI' for finance professionals, emphasizing that proficiency i | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276920714.md) |

---

> **Disclaimer**: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.