November 3, 2026
Circle’s earnings arrive at the collision of a crypto crisis and a rate cycle that punishes every dollar of reserve income the stablecoin giant earns.
Circle Internet Group reports Q3 results before the open on Wednesday, November 4, and the backdrop could hardly be more complicated. The company carries a market capitalisation of roughly $18.3 billion, down 39% from its peak, even as trailing twelve-month revenue has grown 37% to $2.91 billion. Trailing revenue does not pay for a falling stock. What matters Wednesday is whether the path forward still makes sense when two powerful forces are pulling in opposite directions.
The Stocks That Pop 500% in Days
I’ve spent 25+ years hunting these tiny stocks. They always fire the same 3 signals first. Click here to grab the setup before the next Supernova pops 100%, 500%, or more.
The first force is the crypto market itself. On October 29, about $6.3 billion worth of digital currency was stolen from Binance, and U.S. authorities have attributed the theft to the North Korean-linked group TraderTraitor, in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record, surpassing the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025. Bitcoin fell roughly 4% on the initial reports, and spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows of $643 million on Friday, October 30, the largest daily withdrawal of the month. Circle itself moved quickly: Circle and Tether froze stablecoin funds tied to the incident, and Reuters reported that Ripple also froze funds linked to the hack. That response demonstrates the reach of USDC’s compliance infrastructure, but it also underlines how directly the stablecoin model is wired to the health of the broader crypto ecosystem.
The second force sits in Washington. The Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate steady at 3.75% to 4% on October 28, in a 10-2 vote, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack both preferring a quarter-point hike. That dissent has kept December firmly in play. As of November 2, OIS pricing implies a 73% chance of a 25 basis-point hike at the December 9 meeting. For Circle, that matters enormously: reserve income from the USDC float is the company’s primary revenue engine, and a higher front end in December would lift yields on those reserves. But a hike also signals the tightening cycle that has already squeezed crypto multiples. The stock and the rate outlook are pointing in opposite directions, and the options market is pricing only the earnings event in front of it.
Fed dissent at this scale has moved markets before. A prior FOMC vote with three unified dissenters pushed 30-year Treasury yields to levels not seen since 2007, resetting risk premiums across rate-sensitive assets.
You Don’t Need to Buy a Single IPO to Profit From the Boom
SpaceX already went public and Anthropic and OpenAI could be right behind. Income expert Tim Plaehn uncovered a little-known fund that lets you play the whole wave while getting paid monthly: up to $1,104 in a single month.
Options on CRCL are pricing an implied move of roughly ±$9.73, or 13.3%, through the November 13 expiration, with implied volatility around 99.5% and a one-year IV rank in the mid-40s to around 50. A mid-rank reading means premium is elevated but not extreme. The skew is worth noting: the put-call implied volatility ratio sits near parity, and the volume-weighted put-call ratio is around 0.58, suggesting the options market is not pricing heavy downside protection. Calls are seeing proportionally more activity than puts even as the stock trades near its 52-week floor.
The trade thesis: a bull call spread in the November 21 expiration, buying the $75 call and selling the $85 call for a net debit near $2.50 to $3.00. The thesis requires three things to work: Q3 results land at or above the consensus EPS of roughly $0.38 on revenue near $790 million, USDC circulation around $75 billion demonstrates supply resilience despite the hack-driven market stress, and the December hike probability holds without another leg higher in short rates that resets the multiple. The maximum loss is the premium paid. The defined upside approaches 3:1 at expiration if CRCL recovers toward its analyst consensus price target. The 12-month consensus price target stands at $107.48, implying about 48% upside from current levels.
What would break the thesis? A revenue miss driven by lower-than-expected reserve yields. Signs that USDC circulation is rolling over. Or a hawkish Fed surprise between now and mid-November that forces another round of multiple compression across crypto-adjacent equities. Morgan Stanley lowered its Circle price target to $34 from $37 on October 30, a reminder that not all analysts are positioned for a recovery.
He Called Black Monday. He Called the ’95 Tech Boom. He Called the 2009 Bottom. Now He’s Back.
Each time, Dr. Mark Skousen went against the crowd. Each time, the people who listened got a head start. Now “America’s Economist” is out with his boldest call in years.
Coinbase and crypto-adjacent equities face the same rate pressure. Mining stocks and crypto-adjacent names amplify Bitcoin’s move by two to three times when hike odds climb toward a coin-flip.
Circle enters Wednesday carrying a 39% drawdown, a crypto market still digesting the largest hack in history, and a Fed that two of its own voters wanted to tighten further six days ago. The options market is pricing the earnings event but has not priced the December rate decision. That gap is the edge. A spread that costs roughly $2.50 to $3.00 and pays out up to $10.00 if Circle simply recovers half its drawdown from the May high is a defined-risk way to express a thesis where the downside is known before the first tick hits Wednesday morning.
