Circle announced its stunning financial report yesterday, and behind the 30% surge in stock price in a single day, is it a victory for Web3 infrastructure or a trick of financial embellishment by Wall Street?
Peeling back its freshly released Q4 financial report, three "confusing" data points were discovered:
1: Of the total revenue of 770 million USD in Q4, a staggering 733 million USD (approximately 95%) came from "reserve income." This refers to the interest earned from using users' fiat funds to purchase USDC to buy government bonds or deposit in banks.
2: The "other income" (such as Arc public chain, payment network, smart contracts) that truly represents technical capabilities and the blockchain ecosystem was only 37 million USD, accounting for less than 5%.
3: The most misleading statement is that "Q4 adjusted EBITDA soared by 412%." However, looking at the entire year of 2025, the GAAP net loss reached 70 million USD (a significant deterioration compared to the 157 million USD net profit in 2024). The culprit for the losses is the 424 million USD in IPO stock compensation expenses. The management cleverly excluded this huge cost, creating the illusion of soaring profitability.
All data comes from Circle's financial report, the conclusion is left to you 😗 The image is AI-generated