Circle Books $865M in Q3 on ARC Presale, Cuts 5% of Staff

Circle reported $865 million in total revenue and reserve income for the third quarter on Wednesday, up 17% from a year earlier. One line did most of that work. $182 million was recognized from the presale of ARC, the token behind Circle's Arc blockchain. Income from the reserves backing USDC, the business the company is usually measured by, fell 8% to $658 million. A footnote to the earnings tables also disclosed something the highlights left out, that Circle had cut about 5% of its workforce.

The token did the lifting

Other revenue came in at $207 million against $29 million in the same quarter last year, and the ARC presale accounts for nearly all of the difference. Circle agreed in the spring to sell $242.2 million of the token at $0.30 a unit, and it opened Arc's public mainnet on 16 September. Adjusted EBITDA reached $317 million, up 85% from $171.5 million. The company put that jump down to the presale and to lower distribution payments to the partners that carry USDC. Reserve income moved the other way as the reserve return rate slipped 61 basis points. Average USDC in circulation grew 8% to $73.3 billion over the quarter, and onchain transaction volume reached $13.9 trillion, up 49%. Volume up by half, income down by a twelfth. The yield did the moving, not the usage.

A staff cut in the footnotes

The reduction did not appear in the release's list of business highlights. It surfaced in a note to the earnings tables, which recorded $9.1 million in restructuring expenses covering notice periods, severance and benefits. Both The Block and Bitcoin Magazine quote the same line of company wording for it.

"Designed to better align our organizational structure with our operating model and strategic priorities," the filing said of the reduction.

Circle gave no headcount, no date inside the quarter and no indication of which teams were affected. The Block puts the company at roughly 1,100 employees worldwide at the end of 2025, citing the annual report, and that figure appears in no other account read here. Unchained ran its own arithmetic from a base of that size and got roughly 55 people. That is an outside calculation off an old number, not a disclosure.

Four scorecards, four versions of the beat

Everyone read this as a beat. Nobody read it the same way. Bankless put adjusted earnings at 84 cents a share against a forecast of 37 cents, and revenue against a forecast of $778 million. A 247wallst card gives the same 84 cents, a consensus of $0.38 and a revenue estimate of $789 million. MarketBeat agrees on 84 cents and puts the consensus at $0.42. A GuruFocus headline, the only part of that page read here, says 89 cents. Three forecasts and two earnings figures, and they do not reconcile; we could not establish which consensus set each outlet drew on. The revenue line is steadier. Four accounts print $865 million, MarketBeat prints $864.89 million and 247wallst prints $864.9 million with growth of 16.9%, which is one number rounded three ways.

Still waiting on a headcount

Operating expenses rose 16% to $245 million and distribution, transaction and other costs fell 8% to $412 million, on The Block's reading alone. No second account read here breaks those lines out. USDC circulation ended the quarter at $73.9 billion by the same reading, level with a year earlier, with Circle's share of the stablecoin market down to 27%. Circle has also been reworking how the largest holders get out, including hourly auctions that hand the exit fee to whoever mints. Full-year guidance did not move, which a 247wallst card read as a sign the presale was already inside the annual outlook. The Tazapay acquisition is not expected to close until 2027, and Arc is not due to switch to proof of stake, where validators lock up tokens to secure a chain, until the same year. Both sit on a 2027 clock. The headcount sits on none.