Confluence of Tactical and Structural Headwinds Creates Numbers Downside & Multiple Drag; Downgrade to Underweight with $38 PT

研报英文原文证据摘录

Confluence of Tactical and Structural Headwinds Creates Numbers Downside & Multiple Drag; Downgrade to Underweight with $38 PT

IdeaM— AUM rose from $1.5bn at year-end '25 to >$2bn in March, with Circle calling

USYC the world's largest tokenized money market fund — but in our view, it is a

structurally weaker business for Circle from both a unit economic and competitive

value proposition perspective. A tokenized MMF is a registered fund, so the yield

belongs to the holder and Circle collects only its disclosed 10% performance fee.

Therefore, a customer dollar held in directly distributed USDC produces materially

more revenue for Circle than a dollar held in USYC. Said another way, with banks

already holding the corporate balances and treasury relationships, and the GENIUS

Act enabling banks to pay tokenized deposit holders interest while still settling on-

chain, Circle may not be able to structurally defend USDC balances in the same way

banks can defend their respective deposit bases, as its only answer is to migrate the

customer into a structurally lower take rate product in USYC. Additionally, we

believe it's possible that banks and other platforms may launch their own tokenized

MMFs, keeping the spread and leaving USDC primarily as the settlement rail. Under

this admittedly wide range of outcomes, adoption lifts stablecoin throughput, but

may not necessarily build durable USDC balances and could dilutive ARPU over

time.

...with any potential transition to a payment / transaction oriented model likely

taking a meaningful amount of time and investment. The structural appeal of

Circle's yield model has narrowed in a post-GENIUS world as banks can pay interest

on tokenized deposits while USDC legally cannot, eroding Circle's desired position