Something strange is happening on Wall Street. This is not Elon Musk, AI, nor is it a late-night post by Donald Trump. This is a cryptocurrency company called Circle Internet Group, which makes the market feel like the glorious era of the Internet bubble is back.
Circle will be available on June 5. In just 11 trading sessions, its stock exploded an almost unprecedented 675%, adding more than $42 billion in market cap. Now the company trades at the same valuation as tech unicorns and AI Moonshots, which is essentially the price of investors paying $295, every dollar of every dollar of revenue per dollar.
There is only one problem. The circle has no revolutionary AI. It won’t build stylish consumer gadgets. Its business model is shocking.
It works: You give the circle a dollar. They provide you with a digital token called USDC, which is worth the same dollar. They then invest your actual dollar, invest it in security like Treasury short-term bonds, and collect interest.
You get the token. They make profits. That’s it. That’s the whole business.
This has led critics to mark circles as nothing more than a glorious “monetary wrapper”. So why does Wall Street treat it like the next Tesla?
The answer is one word: stablecoin.
USDC is a stable token, a digital token fixed on a stable asset, in this case the US dollar. The idea is that for every USDC token, there is a real dollar in the reserve account. This makes it very useful for cryptocurrency traders who need the speed of digital assets without the crazy fluctuations of Bitcoin.
And now, the Bulls bet on Stablecoins is about to become mainstream. The Senate has just passed the Genius Act, a landmark legislation that paves the way for fintechs like banks, PayPal, and even retailers like Walmart and Amazon use Stablecoins to make payments. Suddenly, the dream of encryption becoming a true alternative to visas or Mastercard seems to be touched.
Analysts are wandering. Citi predicts that the Stablecoin market could reach $3.7 trillion by 2030. In this case, Circle can be cashed out as a neutral platform that is not related to any single bank.
But there is a catch. A business model that seems to be such an excellent in a high interest rate environment is also its biggest weakness.
“Circle’s entire business is actually stuck to tax policies,” one user wrote on Reddit’s R/wallstreetbets. “It’s a financial ETF with a windbreaker.”
If the Fed lowers interest rates, Circle’s main income stream will be reduced. There is nothing to stop big players from launching their own appearance-type stabilization proteins, thus erasing the edge of Circle overnight. If everyone offers the same thing, Circle’s moat starts to look shallow. However, Wall Street piles up like the next Openai. What if the regulator changes its tone? The entire model can be at risk. The business is very fragile.
When Gizmodo contacted Gizmodo, a spokesperson said the company was in a “quiet time” after the IPO, which legally restricted its promotional statements.
Currently, the hype is winning. Circle’s stock is on fire, driven by future commitments, and we all pay for coffee in digital dollars. But on the surface, the $50 billion company won’t innovate or disrupt. It just holds your cash, gives you digital receipts, and brings interest. In the weird world of finance in 2025, it is obviously enough to be crowned as the new King of Wall Street.
