73 Sells, 0 Buys: Is This Circle Management's 'Long-Termism'?

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

"Circle is playing the long game... If we can achieve our mission of building a full-stack internet platform infrastructure, the stock is going to take care of itself in the long run."

On July 14, Circle President Heath Tarbert appeared in a live interview on FOX Business. When answering the host's question about "CRCL has fallen from a high of $260 to $62, what do you want to say to trapped investors?", Tarbert gave the above response.

Shouting "long-term value" seems to be the answer every company experiencing a stock price downturn gives, but to assess the credibility of this answer, one cannot simply look at how management describes the future; rather, one must see whether they are willing to continue betting on the future with their own funds.

After all, management is often the group that knows the company best, possessing its operational data, strategic plans, and future growth paths. If they firmly believe the current stock price is undervalued, then a significant pullback should theoretically be a rare buying opportunity.

But for Circle, management's actions may reveal a different answer.

73 sells, 0 buys: Is this the so-called long-term value?

After Tarbert raised the banner of "long-term", CRCL investors reviewed Circle's Form 4 filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and discovered a rather intriguing fact — the Circle president, who had just conveyed long-term confidence to the market, has been continuously selling company stock since CRCL's listing.

• Odaily Note: Form 4 is a securities transaction filing that insiders of U.S. listed companies must submit to the SEC, disclosing stock purchases and sales by directors, executives, and shareholders holding more than 10% of shares. While ordinary investors can only see public market price changes, Form 4 provides an important window into how insiders view the company's value.

Circle's Form 4 filings show that since Tarbert first sold CRCL in June 2025, he has sold CRCL a total of 10 times, cashing out approximately $30.77 million, and has never made any additional purchases.

If it were only Tarbert continuously selling shares, that might be one thing, but further reviewing all insider trading records of Circle reveals that the situation is not so simple — from the founder and CEO, to the CFO, to the CPTO, to the CAO, to board members... multiple core insiders of Circle have been selling shares, with a total of 73 sells and 0 buys, cashing out approximately $664 million.

Here is a brief summary of the stock selling data of these core insiders:

• Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire sold a total of 9 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $139 million;
• Board member Burns M Michele sold a total of 12 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $276 million;
• Board member Neville Patrick Sean sold a total of 13 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $181 million;
• CFO Fox-Geen Jeremy sold a total of 9 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $22.45 million;
• CPTO Chandhok Nikhil sold a total of 12 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $69.21 million;
• CAO Schulz Tamara sold a total of 9 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $1.21 million;
• President Heath Tarbert sold a total of 10 times, bought 0 times, cashing out $30.77 million...

Clearly, when CRCL's stock price has fallen more than 70% from its peak and the market is reassessing Circle's long-term value, the group closest to the company's business itself did not choose to express confidence in future growth by increasing their holdings.

Executive selling is common, but the trading structure is too "one-sided"

It should be noted that insider selling cannot simply be equated with them being bearish on the company's future.

For management of listed companies, stock selling is not uncommon. Especially after an IPO, founders, executives, and early investors often hold large amounts of equity, and selling some shares for wealth diversification, tax planning, or personal asset allocation is normal.

Therefore, simply seeing one or even multiple executives selling shares is not enough to prove they are not optimistic about the company's future. The real key is — after a significant stock price correction, is anyone willing to buy back?

For Circle, the controversy lies precisely here.

CRCL quickly rose above $260 after listing, then fell all the way back, currently down more than 70% from its high. Although there was a brief rebound some time ago, it did not last long before falling again. According to traditional investment logic, if management truly believes the company's long-term value has not changed, or even believes the market is undervaluing Circle's future, then the significantly corrected stock price should have provided a highly attractive buying opportunity.

After all, compared to ordinary investors, these insiders naturally have an absolute information advantage. They know the growth of USDC, the progress of the company's customer expansion, the future product roadmap, and the company's true position in the stablecoin competition... However, judging from the publicly disclosed Form 4 data, Circle's core management has not made any purchases at the low stock price, but has been continuously selling to cash out.

This highly "one-sided" trading structure makes it difficult to convey to the market the long-term confidence that matches the "playing the long game" mentioned in the interview.

CRCL Value Reassessment: Can the Long-term Narrative Match the Current Valuation?

Of course, even if insiders are continuously selling shares, it cannot be completely equated with "Circle lacks long-term value," but it can easily further strengthen the market's pessimistic expectations for the company.

Especially against the backdrop of CRCL's continuous stock price decline, there is a huge divergence in the market's perception of Circle — Is Circle a future financial infrastructure company, or an issuer that relies on stablecoin scale and interest rate environment?

In the early days of the IPO, the market gave Circle a high valuation, betting on a grander story — as stablecoins become the global digital payment infrastructure, Circle has the opportunity to become an important gateway connecting traditional finance and the crypto world.

However, as the stock price fell from its highs, investors have begun to re-examine this logic. On one hand, Circle's current revenue is still highly dependent on USDC reserve asset returns. Whether profitability can maintain high growth under the interest rate cut cycle has become a market concern. On the other hand, during the crypto market downturn, whether USDC's growth space can still meet previous expectations is also uncertain. Moreover, as more financial institutions and crypto enterprises enter the stablecoin field, Circle's once greatest compliance advantage is also being reassessed.

Therefore, the current downturn of CRCL can essentially be understood as the market re-evaluating its value — whether the growth of the stablecoin industry and Circle's own business conditions are sufficient to support the high-growth valuation once assigned to CRCL.

In the future, Circle still needs to answer this question with actual performance.