The short version
- Circle earnings are due Wednesday, November 4, with analysts expecting about $788 million in Q3 revenue and $0.37 a share, against $701 million and $0.18 in Q2.
- USDC alone points to about $720 million, because average supply fell about 4% in Q3 even as higher T-bill yields lifted the return, so the gap hangs on $242 million of ARC token presale money Circle hasn’t booked yet.
- Next: the release and webcast at 13:00 UTC (8:00 a.m. in New York) on Wednesday. We’ll post the key numbers on Base Camp on X as soon as they’re out.
Circle earnings land on Wednesday, and the number Wall Street is waiting for may not come from USDC at all. Analysts expect about $788 million in revenue for the third quarter, up from $701 million in Q2. But USDC got smaller over the summer, not bigger.
So where would the extra $87 million come from? The best answer sits on Circle’s balance sheet: $242 million it already collected for ARC tokens and hasn’t counted as revenue yet.
Circle is taking shareholder questions for the call until Tuesday:
Verified Circle stockholders can now submit questions for our upcoming earnings call through Say.
Questions can be submitted and upvoted until Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026 at 9 am ET.
A selection of questions will be addressed by management during the call.
Submit here:
When Are Circle Earnings, and What Does Wall Street Expect?
The Circle Q3 results come out on Wednesday, November 4, with a live webcast at 13:00 UTC (8:00 a.m. in New York) on YouTube and X. That is one day after the US midterms, so CRCL stock trades the results into a busy market.
The consensus sits at about $788 million in revenue and $0.37 a share, roughly double the $0.18 Circle earned in Q2. A year ago, Q3 brought in $740 million and $214 million of net income, when the reserve return rate was 4.2%.
Circle has a mixed record on these. It beat the profit estimate in each of the last four quarters, but missed on revenue in Q2: $701 million against about $713 million expected.
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USDC Alone Gets Circle to About $720 Million
Nearly all of Circle’s money is interest on the cash and Treasury bills behind USDC, so the math is simple: average USDC times the yield. In Q2 that was $76.5 billion at 3.5%, or $668 million of reserve income.
Q3 had less USDC. The daily supply on DefiLlama’s USDC tracker averaged $73.5 billion in Q3, about 4% below Q2. It bottomed at $71.8 billion on August 6 and ended September at $74.6 billion.
The Fed softened the blow. Three-month T-bills averaged 3.80% in Q3 against 3.62% in Q2, and the Fed’s hike on September 16 lifted them further. If Circle earned the same gap below T-bills as in Q2, its reserve return rate rises to about 3.7%. That puts reserve income near $680 million, slightly up despite the smaller coin.
Add other revenue at the first-half pace of about $38 million a quarter, and USDC-driven revenue lands around $720 million. That is roughly $70 million short of the consensus.
The $242 Million Swing Factor: ARC Token Presale
That gap is the ARC presale. In Q2, Circle sold 807.5 million ARC tokens at $0.30 each to investors including a16z crypto, BlackRock and Apollo, for about $242.2 million. Its Q2 10-Q books that money as deferred revenue until Circle meets its obligations to those buyers. After that it becomes other revenue.
Circle’s own guidance says that moment comes this year. In August it more than doubled its full-year other revenue target to $310 million to $330 million, “including recognized ARC Token presale revenue.” With about $76 million in the first half, that leaves $234 million to $254 million for Q3 and Q4 combined.
Arc’s mainnet went live on September 16, and Circle minted all 10 billion ARC tokens that week. If the presale counts in Q3, revenue could jump past $900 million. If it waits for Q4, Q3 could miss the $788 million estimate by a wide margin. The consensus sits between the two, so it reads like a partial bet on Q3.
SIDE TRAIL: Circle Stock Drops 6% After Mizuho Warns AI Agents Could Pull Cash From USDC
What Circle Pays to Keep USDC Growing
Revenue is only half the story, because Circle hands most of it to partners. Distribution, transaction and other costs were $412 million in Q2, so only $289 million stayed with Circle after paying partners.
Coinbase already showed part of the Q3 bill. It reported $307 million of stablecoin revenue for the quarter, up 5%, as average USDC on Coinbase hit a record $22 billion. That is money Circle shares with Coinbase, and it grew while USDC shrank.
Binance is the next cost line. On September 17, Circle signed a five-year deal to pay Binance a monthly fee on USDC held through its wallet service, and Binance bought $100 million of CRCL stock at $80.84 a share. The stock now trades below that price.
How Has CRCL Stock Reacted to Past Circle Earnings?
Big moves, mostly. Circle reports before the US open, so the report-day close against the day before is the reaction:
Two big rallies, one double-digit drop and one shrug. Four reports are a thin sample, but a 15% day is normal for this stock. CRCL closed Friday at $72.54, down 11.7% from $82.17 at the end of September and 8.5% lower this year.
What to Watch on November 4
These are the lines worth checking first in the release:
- Other revenue. Anything near $250 million means the ARC presale landed in Q3. Then take it out before judging the quarter.
- Reserve return rate. About 3.7% is what the T-bill math says. Lower would mean the September hike helped less than the T-bill math says.
- Revenue less distribution costs. Circle guided a margin of 41.7% to 43.7% for the year, again including the presale.
- USDC since September. Supply is down to about $71.7 billion from $74.6 billion at the end of Q3. Any Q4 outlook has to work from that smaller base.
- The CFO search. CFO Jeremy Fox-Geen said in September he will step down by the end of December, so listen for a successor or a timeline on the call.
TRAIL MAP: Stablecoin Supply Falls to $301.6B as USDC Loses $4.15B in a Month
Circle earnings will likely look better than the USDC business behind them, if the presale money lands this quarter. Strip it out and look at reserve income: around $680 million would mean higher rates carried a smaller coin, and anything well under $660 million would mean Q4 starts from a weaker spot.
TheCryptoMonk has been trading since 2017 and reads the market from the top down. The focus is macro and the high timeframes: where stocks, rates and liquidity are heading, and what the weekly and monthly charts say about Bitcoin. Short-term noise matters less than the bigger trend.
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