Circle reported second-quarter total revenue and reserve income of $701 million, representing a 7% increase from the prior-year period but falling short of Wall Street analyst expectations. The report marks one of the company's earliest quarterly disclosures since its June 2025 IPO on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL. The earnings announcement was accompanied by several major infrastructure and regulatory developments: a confirmed September 16 launch date for the Arc public mainnet, final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a federal trust bank, and the disclosure of a high-profile founding validator group comprising leading global financial institutions.

Revenue Falls Short as USDC Activity Expands

During the second quarter, reserve income reached $668 million, up 5% year over year. Other revenue climbed 41% to $34 million. Net income from continuing operations totaled $48 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased 8% to $143 million.

Reserve income—Circle's largest revenue source—is generated primarily from interest earned on the short-term U.S. Treasury securities and cash holdings that back USDC, making the company's top line highly sensitive to changes in benchmark interest rates.

CEO Jeremy Allaire attributed the revenue shortfall to lower interest rates and a slowdown in cryptocurrency market activity during the quarter. Despite those factors, USDC continued to expand across blockchain networks. Circle reported that on-chain USDC transaction volume surged 151% year over year to $14.8 trillion. USDC circulation stood at $73.3 billion at quarter-end—down from the first quarter but still 19% higher than a year earlier. Citing Visa Onchain Analytics, Circle noted that USDC accounted for nearly 70% of stablecoin transaction volume in June.

Arc Mainnet Scheduled for September Launch

Alongside its earnings, Circle confirmed that Arc's public mainnet will launch on September 16. The company also disclosed its founding validator group, which includes BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa. The composition of the validator set spans asset management, clearing and settlement, payments, and digital asset trading—sectors central to the existing financial infrastructure that stablecoins are increasingly integrated with.

Separately, Circle renewed its distribution agreement with Coinbase under existing terms and announced a new shared-revenue arrangement with Hyperliquid.

Guidance Raised on Token Presale Revenue and OCC Charter

Circle increased its full-year 2026 guidance for other revenue to between $310 million and $330 million. Management said the upward revision primarily reflects revenue recognition from the Arc token presale.

On the regulatory front, Circle received final approval from the OCC to establish Circle National Trust, making it one of the first stablecoin issuers to secure a federal trust bank charter. The charter places Circle under direct federal banking supervision and comes as Congress has moved to establish a comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin issuance through the GENIUS Act, signed into law in 2025.

Additionally, Circle reported that its payments network reached approximately $15 billion in annualized transaction volume at quarter-end. Management noted that figure had grown to roughly $23 billion by July 31.