Circle Internet Group had one of the flashier Wall Street debuts in recent memory. The company priced its IPO at $31 per share on June 5, 2025, watched the stock open at $69 on day one, and then saw it run all the way to roughly $299 by late June. That is the kind of trajectory that makes investors feel like geniuses.
By mid-July 2026, those same investors were staring at a price somewhere between $60 and $64. That is a decline of more than 75% from the peak, a 52-week low of $49.90 in the rearview mirror, and a story that now reads a lot less like a triumph and a lot more like a lesson.
How you go from $299 to $64
Circle’s core business is issuing USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin currently circulating at around $73 billion. The problem is that growth has stalled, and in a market where investors are paying a premium for a growth story, stagnation is expensive.
USDC’s circulation numbers have plateaued even as the broader stablecoin market continues to expand. Visa has thrown its weight behind a rival stablecoin project, which is the kind of competitive signal that makes institutional investors nervous. Analyst downgrades have added pressure.
