Author | Azuma(@azuma_eth)
"Circle is focused on the long term (playing the long game)... If we can achieve the mission of building full-stack internet platform infrastructure, the stock price will naturally take care of itself in the long run (the stock is going to take care of itself)."
On July 14th, Circle President Heath Tarbert appeared in a live interview with 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.
Chanting "long-term value" seems to be the answer every company gives during periods of depressed stock prices. But to verify the credibility of this answer, we cannot simply look at how management describes the future, but rather whether they are willing to continue betting on the future with their own money.
After all, management is often the group that knows the company's situation best. They possess the company's operational data, strategic plans, and future growth trajectory. If they truly believe the current stock price is undervalued, then a significant price correction should theoretically present a rare buying opportunity.
However, for Circle, the actions of management may reveal a different answer.
73 Sell Trades, 0 Buy Trades: 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 interesting fact — this very president who just conveyed long-term confidence to the market has been consistently selling company stock since CRCL went public.
- Odaily Note: Form 4 is a securities transaction report that insiders of U.S. public companies must file with the SEC, used to disclose the buying and selling of company stock by directors, executives, and shareholders holding more than 10% of shares. Compared to ordinary investors who 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's first sale of CRCL in June 2025, he has cumulatively sold CRCL 10 times, cashing out approximately $30.77 million in total, and has never made any purchases to increase his holdings.
If it were just Tarbert alone consistently selling stock, that might be one thing. However, further review of all insider transaction records for Circle reveals that things are not that simple — from the founder and CEO, to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), to the Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), to the Chief Accounting Officer (CAO), to board members... multiple key insiders at Circle have been selling stock, totaling 73 sell trades, 0 buy trades, with a total cash-out of approximately $664 million.
A brief summary of the stock sale data for these key insiders:
- Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire: 9 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $139 million in total;
- Board member Burns M Michele: 12 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $276 million in total;
- Board member Neville Patrick Sean: 13 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $181 million in total;
- Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Fox-Geen Jeremy: 9 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $22.45 million in total;
- Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) Chandhok Nikhil: 12 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $69.21 million in total;
- Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) Schulz Tamara: 9 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $1.21 million in total;
- President Heath Tarbert: 10 sell trades, 0 buy trades, cashed out $30.77 million in total...
Clearly, as the CRCL stock price fell over 70% from its high and the market began re-evaluating Circle's long-term value, the group closest to the company's business itself did not choose to express confidence in future growth by buying more shares.
Executive Stock Sales Are Common, But the Trading Structure Is Too "One-Sided"
It should be noted that insider stock sales cannot simply be equated with them being bearish on the company's future.
For the management of public companies, stock sales themselves are not uncommon. Especially after an IPO, founders, executives, and early investors often hold large amounts of equity. Selling some shares to achieve wealth diversification, tax planning, or personal asset allocation are all normal phenomena.
Therefore, simply seeing one or even multiple executives selling stock is not enough to prove they are not optimistic about the company's future. The real key issue is — after a significant stock price correction, is anyone willing to buy back in?
For Circle, the controversy lies precisely here.
CRCL rose quickly after its listing to above $260, then fell all the way down. It has currently fallen over 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 underestimates Circle's future, then the significantly corrected stock price should provide a highly attractive buying opportunity.
After all, compared to ordinary investors, these insiders naturally possess absolute information advantages. They know the growth of USDC, the progress of the company's customer expansion, future product roadmaps, 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 lower stock price levels but has been continuously selling and cashing out.
This highly "one-sided" trading structure makes it difficult to convey to the market a level of long-term confidence that matches the "playing the long game" rhetoric from the interview.
Re-evaluating CRCL's Value: Does the Long-term Narrative Match the Current Valuation?
Of course, even if insiders are continuously selling stock, it cannot be completely equated with "Circle lacks long-term value," but it can easily further strengthen the market's pessimistic expectations about the company.
Especially against the backdrop of CRCL's continuously declining stock price, the market's perception of Circle already has a huge divergence — Is Circle a future financial infrastructure company, or an issuer dependent on stablecoin scale and the interest rate environment?
In the early days of the IPO, the high valuation the market gave Circle bet on a grander story — as stablecoins become 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 still heavily relies on returns from USDC reserve assets. Whether profitability can maintain high-speed growth during a rate-cutting cycle has become a market concern. On the other hand, during a downturn in the crypto market, whether USDC's growth potential can still meet previous expectations is also uncertain. Furthermore, as more financial institutions and crypto enterprises enter the stablecoin field, Circle's once greatest compliance advantage is also being re-evaluated.
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 will still need to answer this question with actual performance.
