Circle keeps 7 cents per dollar of revenue, and its CFO just sold $1.35 million of stock at $90
Circle's departing CFO exercised 15,000 options at $10.11 and sold at $90 days before a November 4 report where 95% of revenue rides on a reserve return that fell 66 basis points last quarter. The successor is unnamed and the margin he leaves is 7 cents per dollar.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The money machine's operator heads for the door
Jeremy Fox-Geen built Circle's−7.26% — Circle's, down 7.26 percent today finance organization after joining in May 2021, steered the company through a $1.2 billion IPO, and told it on September 25 that he will leave by December 2026 while an executive search firm hunts his successor 2. This week his exit hit the tape.
A Form 4 filed October 23 shows Circle's chief financial officer exercised 15,000 options at a $10.11 strike on October 21 and sold the same shares at $90 the same day, about $1.35 million, under a pre-set 10b5-1 trading plan 1. The plan matters: it was scheduled in advance, but it is still the man who ran the P&L cashing out nine times his strike while his successor is unnamed and his exit weeks away 12.
What the company keeps per dollar
The P&L he leaves behind is thinner than the headline suggests. First-half 2026 revenue ran about $1.4 billion, and about $819 million of it, 59%, went straight to USDC distribution partners and transaction costs; another roughly $473 million, 34%, paid for licenses, banking, compliance, liquidity and product 4. That leaves about 7 cents of profit per dollar of revenue 4. Circle's chief commercial officer, Kash Razzaghi, frames it as the cost of monetary infrastructure: 55-plus licenses, 25-plus banking relationships, USDC on 35-plus blockchains, and pre-positioned cash so redemptions clear around the clock 4.
Circle keeps 7 cents of every revenue dollar
- Partner & transaction costs5959%
- Licensing, banking, compliance, product3434%
- Kept as profit77%
Data
| Part | Share of revenue | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Partner & transaction costs | 59 | 59% |
| Licensing, banking, compliance, product | 34 | 34% |
| Kept as profit | 7 | 7% |
The rate line is the whole story
Ninety-five percent of the business is one number. In Circle's second quarter, reserve income was $668 million of $701 million in total revenue.
Those figures come from Circle's August 5 results as reported by TIKR: reserve income grew just 5% while average USDC in circulation grew 25%, because the return on Circle's reserves fell 66 basis points to 3.5% in that quarter 3. USDC ended the quarter at $73.3 billion, below its $76.5 billion average for the period 3. Consensus expects normalized EPS to drop from $2.35 in 2025 to $1.14 this year 3.
USDC grew 25%, the money it earns grew 5%
Data
| Rate or growth, % | |
|---|---|
| Average USDC growth | 25 |
| Reserve income growth | 5 |
| Reserve return, % | 3.5 |
The bulls have receipts too
The counter-case is real. Needham lifted its target to $134 on October 21, 48% above the prior close; Binance bought $100 million of Circle stock at $80.84 on September 22 with a two-year lockup and renewed its commercial deal for five years 3.
Management doubled its 2026 other-revenue guidance to $310 million to $330 million, boosted by Arc token presale revenue 3. Needham's own analyst math flags the stretch, as Needham itself reports it: its $134 target works out to a 107x forward P/E, well above the stock's one-year average of 76x 3.
The retail tape is louder than the arithmetic: "If you don't like $CRCL at $91.33, you are really going to dislike it at $125," one Stocktwits account posted 6. The stock closed October 23 at $85.91, down 34% from its peak a year ago 35.
What to watch on November 4
Circle reports third-quarter results on November 4, and that print decides the near-term case: whether reserve income growth can keep pace with USDC growth while the reserve return holds near 3.5%, instead of sliding again 3. Same day, watch two countable things: who the successor CFO is, and the departing CFO's remaining position, 302,930 shares plus 1,070,606 options at the $10.11 strike expiring May 2031, which keeps printing plan-based supply into a thin-margin quarter 12.
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