CRCL: Solid Start to the Year; Maintain OW

Research evidence excerpt

CRCL: Solid Start to the Year; Maintain OW

Equity Research

Earnings Revised — May 11, 2026

Payments, Processors, and IT Services

Circle Internet Group, Inc.

Solid Start to the Year; Maintain OW Overweight

Price Target: $142.00

Notable Changes

Our Call $ (Dec) Current Prior % Chg

CRCL delivered solid 1Q RLDC/EBITDA and reiterated '26 guide (likely conservative, as it Rev. less 1,212.0 1,228.9 -1.4%

does not include ARC). New use cases for USDC are gaining traction, driven by increased distribution cost

distribution and products (ie, Arc, CPN, Agentic Commerce). Maintain OW. (MM) 2026

Rev. less 1,567.2 1,653.6 -5.2%

distribution cost

Solid 1Q print w/ encouraging commentary on regulation, Agentic. Despite lower (MM) 2027

1Q revs (due to lower reserve rate), RLDC (most important top-line metric) and adj. Rev. (MM) 2026 3.06B 3.12B -1.9%

EBITDA was ahead and '26 guide was reiterated. New Circle Agent Stack offers agentic Rev. (MM) 2027 4.00B 4.26B -6.2%

infrastructure including Agent Wallets, Agent Marketplace, Circle CLI, and Nanopayments

to help power agents' transactions w/USDC. CRCL views Clarity Act as a positive, as Ticker CRCL

updated language aligns stablecoin activity with utility to drive adoption.

Upside/(Downside) to Target 13.4%

Price (05/11/2026) $125.22

Arc and Circle Payment Network (CPN) gaining momentum. CPN annualized payment

volume grew 17% q/q to $8.3B, and $10B as of 5/7, w/ 136 financial institutions (FIs) 52 Week Range $49.90 - 298.99

enrolled. New Managed Payments service offers digital asset management and stablecoin Market Cap (MM) $30,336

payments for FIs. Circle raised $222M from the presale of Arc token (which will sit in Enterprise Value (MM) $28,987

"Other" revs, and is not currently included in '26 guide).