Circle (CRCL) stock has been one of Wall Street’s standout performers in 2026, up about 49% year to date while the S&P 500 sits flat and the Nasdaq 100 is down around 1%.
The stock bottomed near $50 in early February and has since more than doubled. A strong earnings report likely triggered a short squeeze, adding fuel to the move.
On Tuesday, CRCL closed at $118.17, up 5.7% on the day, giving the company a market cap of roughly $30.3 billion.
Bernstein analysts, led by Gautam Chhugani, reiterated an “Outperform” rating and set a $190 price target. That implies about 60% more upside from current levels.
The core of their thesis is that stablecoin adoption is pulling away from the broader crypto market cycle. Bitcoin and the wider crypto market remain well below their highs, but USDC supply has rebounded to nearly $78 billion — close to a record — after a brief dip following last October’s crypto liquidity shock.
The total U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin market has also held steady at around $270 billion through the bear market, according to the Bernstein report.
Transaction activity is picking up. Adjusted stablecoin volumes grew more than 90% year-over-year, and transaction velocity — how frequently tokens change hands — has increased. That points to stablecoins being used for more than just crypto trading.
Payments are a big part of that shift. Stablecoins are now embedded with traditional card networks. Visa supports more than 130 stablecoin-linked cards across 50 countries, processing roughly $4.6 billion in annualized settlement volume.
Circle’s own Payments Network, which lets institutions send USDC cross-border and convert it into local currencies, now counts around 55 institutions. Annualized volumes on the network hit $5.7 billion earlier this year.
On the regulatory side, the GENIUS Act — passed in 2025 — gave companies a clearer federal framework for issuing and using stablecoins, covering reserve backing, disclosures, and oversight. That kind of clarity has helped traditional finance warm up to the space.
BlackRock manages the Circle Reserve Fund, BNY Mellon serves as primary custodian, and both Fidelity and Goldman Sachs have invested in Circle.
Bernstein also flagged a newer growth theme: AI-driven “agentic finance.” As autonomous software agents increasingly handle online transactions, stablecoins could serve as a natural payment rail for machine-to-machine micropayments — things like API calls or automated services.
To support this, Circle is building a blockchain called Arc, designed for high-throughput, low-cost payments.
USDC is the world’s second-largest stablecoin, with roughly $78 billion in circulation and about a 25% share of the global stablecoin market, according to DeFiLlama.
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