Wood's Crypto Bet
Cathie Wood Remains Bullish on Circle Crypto Stock Despite 66% Drop From Record Highs
Circle Internet Group (CRCL) is still trading around $91 — a 66% drop from its record high of $263.45, hit just days after its 2025 IPO TheStreet. Yet Cathie Wood, the founder of ARK Invest, keeps buying. She now owns 4.51 million shares, making CRCL roughly 8.1% of her entire equity portfolio.
The company behind USDC, the world's second-largest stablecoin, went public at $31 a share on June 4, 2025, and surged 279% in its first 48 hours Idaho Statesman. The stock peaked at $263.45 on June 23. Since then, the broader crypto market has shed more than 50% of its value from its October 2025 highs — and CRCL has fallen hard with it.
From $31 IPO Price to $263 Peak — and Back Down
Circle's debut was one of the most dramatic in recent memory. The stock opened at $31 on the NYSE and rocketed to $263.45 in under three weeks TheStreet. Investors poured in during a global crypto rally. The hype was real — but so was the fall that followed.
In October 2025, a single-day crash erased $450 billion from the total crypto market. Macroeconomic shocks and cascading liquidations triggered the selloff. CRCL never recovered those highs. Even so, the stock still sits 192% above its original IPO price of $31 Sacramento Bee.
Cathie Wood Keeps Buying as Most Investors Step Back
Wood added 100,250 shares of CRCL in a single recent trading session, pushing her total stake to 4.51 million shares The News Tribune. She has called Circle "a foundational piece" of the internet's financial system. In her view, stablecoins are "offsetting declining demand for dollars from China."
ARK Invest frames Circle not just as a stablecoin issuer, but as "blockchain operating system" infrastructure. The firm points to $11.9 trillion in on-chain USDC transactions in 2025 — a 247% jump — as proof the business is growing even as the stock price slumps Macon.com.
Circle Made $2.7 Billion in Revenue but Still Lost Money
Circle reported $2.7 billion in revenue for 2025, up 64% from the year before. But the company posted a $70 million net loss, mostly due to one-time stock compensation costs tied to its IPO Bellingham Herald. USDC's total market cap hit $75.3 billion by the end of 2025.
The business model carries a key risk. About 95% of Circle's revenue in Q4 2025 came from interest earned on its Treasury-backed reserves. That means if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates in 2026, Circle's income could fall sharply — even if USDC keeps growing TheStreet.
New Stablecoin Law Could Be a Game Changer for Circle
In July 2025, Congress passed the GENIUS Act — the first U.S. federal law specifically for payment stablecoins. The law legalized stablecoins for institutional settlement inside the American banking system. For Circle, it was the regulatory green light the company had spent years lobbying for TheStreet.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has said "the era of optional crypto adoption is over for banks." The company is now focused on AI-driven payments, where autonomous software agents use USDC to pay for services without human input. Whether that vision justifies the stock's current price remains the central debate on Wall Street Sacramento Bee.
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