Bernstein Holds $140 Target on Circle Stock, Says Growth Story Holds With or Without Senate Action
Analyst Gautam Chhugani argues USDC's organic momentum and an upcoming blockchain launch make Circle's bull case self-sufficient, even as the Clarity Act sits stalled in the US Senate.
Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani reaffirmed an Outperform rating on Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) on August 24, holding his price target steady at $140 after cutting it from $190 in July 2026 in response to competitive concerns around Open USD (OUSD). Bernstein now describes that competitive threat as fading. The $140 target implies roughly 59% upside from the stock's August 21 closing price of $87.98. The core of his argument: Circle does not need Congress to finish its work on digital asset market structure legislation for the company's growth trajectory to hold.
CRCL shares have swung sharply since the company's mid-2025 IPO, trading in a 52-week range of $49.90 to $159.47. The stock currently sits well below its peak, but Bernstein's case rests on fundamentals rather than regulatory tailwinds. Circle's trailing twelve-month revenue reached $2.91 billion, up 37.2% year over year, with net income of $451 million.
What Bernstein Is Watching
Chhugani pointed to a sharp acceleration in USDC supply as an early signal that Circle's growth cycle is resuming. USDC's circulating supply expanded by approximately $1.7 billion in a single week during mid-August, ending roughly six months of flat supply growth. At the close of Q2 2026, total USDC supply stood at $73.3 billion, up 19% from a year earlier. On-chain transfer volume reached $14.8 trillion in the same period, a 150% year-over-year increase that reflects how much of global payments and settlement is routing through the stablecoin. USDC captured approximately 70% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in the first half of 2026, compared with roughly 25% for USDT.
Bernstein frames this as part of a broader macro shift. "Bitcoin and stablecoins are both beneficiaries of a macro regime shift, with BTC benefiting from renewed demand for hard assets and stablecoins absorbing increased Treasury bill supply," Chhugani said in the note, according to reports.
The Clarity Act, which would govern how digital assets are traded and supervised at the exchange level and how custody and insolvency processes work, cleared the US House 294 to 134 in July 2025. The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15 to 9 in May 2026, a meaningful procedural milestone, though its path on the full Senate floor has remained uncertain. A revised draft circulated on July 22, 2026, with compromise provisions aimed at reaching the 60 votes needed for passage. Bernstein's position is that even if the Senate never acts, the GENIUS Act signed into law by President Trump in July 2025 already gives USDC a federal regulatory home. That legislation created the first federal definition of a payment stablecoin and assigned supervisory authority to issuers like Circle.
Arc Blockchain Adds a New Revenue Layer
A near-term catalyst that Bernstein cites is Arc, a Layer-1 blockchain Circle is building specifically for stablecoin transactions. The public mainnet is scheduled for September 16, 2026. More than 100 institutions participated in a private mainnet phase, and the founding validator set includes BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Standard Chartered, MoneyGram, Galaxy, ICE (Intercontinental Exchange, parent of the NYSE), SBI Group, Sumitomo Corporation, Global Payments, and additional institutional validators. Integration partners include Binance Wallet, Uniswap Labs, Kraken, Fireblocks, MetaMask, Chainlink, Thunes, Ledger, Upbit, Rain, and Wirex.
Arc matters to Circle's investment case because it creates revenue streams outside of interest income on USDC reserves, which is sensitive to interest rate cycles. Bernstein revised its 2026 USDC supply estimate down 37% to $83 billion and cut its 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecast 12% to $602 million, figures that illustrate directly how rate pressure flows through Circle's near-term financials. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire acknowledged that pressure on the Q2 earnings call: "Quarterly results reflect the current rate environment and slower crypto market, conditions outside our network. Near-term activity tells a different story."
What This Means Outside the United States
The implications of Circle's trajectory extend well beyond US equity markets. Africa leads the world in stablecoin ownership as a share of crypto-active users, with 79% of that population holding stablecoins. In Nigeria alone, stablecoins account for roughly 40% of all crypto market activity. The Central Bank of Nigeria proposed in June 2026, under its Payments System Vision 2028 initiative, to run observer nodes on blockchain networks hosting licensed stablecoins, with requirements for on-chain proof of reserves, smart contract transparency, and source code disclosure.
Kenya passed its Virtual Asset Service Provider Act in November 2025, and its Capital Markets Authority launched a tender in June 2026 for blockchain analytics infrastructure providers.
Circle's March 2026 partnership with Sasai Fintech, backed by Zimbabwean entrepreneur Strive Masiyiwa through Cassava Technologies, targets USDC adoption across African payment corridors. Allaire described the deal's rationale directly: "Working with Cassava, we can extend the benefits of USDC and onchain infrastructure into high-growth payment corridors." Arc's integration with Thunes and MoneyGram, both active in African remittance markets, makes the September launch relevant to that region specifically.
In South Asia, where India ranked first on Chainalysis's 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index and Pakistan ranked third, stablecoin volumes grew 80% through mid-2025, the most recent period for which regional data is available. An estimated 93 to 119 million Indians hold crypto, with stablecoins dominant in remittance and freelancer payment use cases. Pakistan has an estimated 10 million freelancers who prefer stablecoin payments, reflecting similar demand for dollar-denominated settlement rails across the subcontinent. Arc validators Standard Chartered, Visa, and Mastercard all operate across South Asian markets, positioning the network as potential settlement infrastructure for the region's fast-growing digital economy.
Bernstein forecasts USDC supply growing at a 32% compound annual rate over the next decade. Separately, the firm forecasts the broader stablecoin market reaching $4 trillion by 2035. At that scale, Circle's projected 30% market share would represent a supply position of roughly $1.2 trillion. The consensus among 27 analysts currently sits far more conservatively at a $101.07 price target. Goldman Sachs holds a $96 target and Morgan Stanley sits at $38, a figure well below consensus that signals not all institutional analysts share Bernstein's confidence in the growth trajectory. Bernstein stands among the most bullish major voices on the stock. How quickly the Arc mainnet gains real transaction volume after September 16 will likely shape where the rest of the Street moves next.