The first stablecoin issuer Circle is quickly plummeting back to its opening price. What is the market worried about?

By: blockbeats|2025/11/14 13:00:01

Original Author: Rubin, Top Influencer in the Knowledge Power List for Economics and Management

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from a roundtable event on "Penetrating Stablecoins" jointly hosted by Zhihu and BlockBeats. The roundtable has accumulated over 26 million views since its launch, attracting widespread attention from both within and outside the industry. The event aims to present the latest developments, key mechanisms, and future trends of stablecoins to the public in a more intuitive and systematic manner.

Roundtable Link: https://www.zhihu.com/roundtable/stablecoin

The following is the original content:

Circle this quarter seems like a pig flying high on the high-interest rate trend, but the market is worried the wind direction may change:

Narrowing spreads, rising costs, single-profit business, regulatory uncertainty;

With these headwinds, companies flying high may also be prone to quick falls.

The first stablecoin issuer Circle is quickly plummeting back to its opening price. What is the market worried about?

Imagine the stock market as a "marathon-style gamble," where yesterday player Circle rushed through a mid-race aid station (Q3) and achieved a good profit result. However, after investors reviewed the report, they believed that the upcoming slope, player pace, and aid may not be sustainable, leading to selling and causing a price drop.

1) Investors Focus More on the "Future"

Although Circle significantly exceeded expectations in Q3, it also raised its full-year operating expense forecast ($495–510M). This implies that the company's future profit growth rate may be "eaten up," making it unable to achieve high profits again.

2) Reserve Yield Declining

Companies like Circle, which operate stablecoins, make a significant portion of their earnings through:

Issuing stablecoins, users buying stablecoins, and the company receiving dollars to purchase conservative asset investments such as government bonds/short-term notes

Take the spread without paying interest through this method.

A report shows that although the total amount of reserve income is large, the reserve's simple interest return has decreased by approximately 96 bps.

If market interest rates decline or short-term yields compress, this profit-making method will significantly shrink in the future, directly impacting earnings.

3) Income Highly Relies on "Reserve Income"

Out of Q3's $740M, the vast majority comes from reserve income ($711M), while "other income" (subscriptions, services, transactions, etc.) is only $29M.

This means that Circle's current business is more like a large treasury that doesn't need to pay interest to users, rather than a traditional SaaS or payment company;

When the market is concerned about narrowing spreads or regulatory impact, this single-income model will be discounted.

4) Regulatory and Policy Risks

Stablecoins are closely related to reserve assets, and any regulation (such as strict rules from the U.S. Congress/regulators on stablecoins) or on reserve assets (such as restrictions on holding government bonds/short-term notes) will affect revenue expectations.

During regulatory uncertainty, investors often demand a higher risk premium, leading to sell-offs and stock price declines.

In fact, Circle is currently in a delicate stage:

Its profit model is sound, its compliance foundation is solid, but the growth story is losing momentum.

Perhaps in the eyes of many traditional investors, it is more like a "dollar fund company," making safe but unimaginative money.

Original Article Link

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The core product "Space" is scheduled to launch in Q2 2026, driven by SocialFi

BeatSwap, a global Web3 Intellectual Property (IP) infrastructure project, is attempting to overcome the current fragmentation limitations of the Web3 ecosystem, building a full-stack system that covers the entire lifecycle of IP rights.

Currently, most Web3 projects are still in the stage of functional fragmentation, often focusing only on a single aspect, such as IP asset tokenization, transaction functionality, or a simple incentive model. This structural dispersion has become a key bottleneck hindering the industry's scale application.

BeatSwap's approach is more integrated, integrating multiple core modules into the same system, including:

· IP authentication and on-chain registration

· Authorization-based revenue sharing mechanism

· User-engagement-driven incentive system

· Transaction and liquidity infrastructure

Through the above integration, the platform builds an end-to-end closed-loop path, allowing IP rights to complete a full cycle of "creation, use, and monetization" within the same ecosystem.

Expanding from Web3 to a broader market: Restructuring the music industry's supply-demand structure

BeatSwap is not limited to existing crypto users but is attempting to take the global music industry as a starting point, actively creating new market demand. Its core strategies include:

Exploring and incubating music creators (Artist discovery)

Building a fan community

Igniting IP-centric content consumption demand

The current global music industry is valued at around $260 billion, with over 2 billion digital music users. This means that the potential market corresponding to the tokenization and financialization of IP far exceeds the traditional crypto user base.

In this context, BeatSwap positions itself at the intersection of "real-world content demand" and "on-chain infrastructure," attempting to bridge the structural gap between content production and financial flow.

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BeatSwap's upcoming core product "Space" is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2026. This product is defined as the SocialFi layer in the ecosystem, aiming to directly connect creators with users and achieve deep integration with other platform modules.

Key designs include:

A fan-centric interactive mechanism

Exposure and distribution logic based on $BTX staking

User paths connected to DeFi and liquidity structures

Thus, a complete user behavior loop is formed within the platform: Discovery → Participation → Consumption → Rewards → Trading

$BTX Token Mechanism: Evolving from an Incentive Tool to a Value Carrier

$BTX is designed to be a core utility asset within the ecosystem, rather than just a simple incentive token, with its value directly tied to platform activity and IP use cases.

Main features include:

· Yield distribution based on on-chain authorized actions

· Value reflection based on IP usage and user engagement dynamics

· Support for staking and DeFi participation mechanisms

· Value growth driven by ecosystem expansion

With the increased frequency of IP use, the utility and value support of $BTX will enhance simultaneously, helping alleviate the "disconnect between value and utility" issue present in traditional Web3 token models to some extent.

Accelerating Global Exchange Layout: Enhancing Liquidity and Accessibility

Currently, $BTX has been listed on several mainstream exchanges, including:

Binance Alpha

Gate

MEXC

OKX Boost

As the launch of "Space" approaches, BeatSwap is actively pursuing more exchange listings to further enhance liquidity and global accessibility, laying a foundation for future market expansion.

Beyond Web3: Aiming for a Larger-Scale Integration of Content and Finance Markets

BeatSwap's goal is no longer limited to the traditional Web3 narrative but aims to target over 2 billion digital music users and a trillion KRW-scale content market.

By integrating content creators, users, capital, and liquidity into a blockchain framework centered around IP rights, BeatSwap is striving to build a next-generation infrastructure focused on "IP tokenization."

Conclusion

BeatSwap integrates IP authentication, authorization distribution, incentive mechanism, transaction system, and market construction to establish a unified structure that bridges the full lifecycle path of IP rights.

With the launch of the Q2 2026 "Space," the project is expected to become a key infrastructure connecting content and finance in the IP-RWA (Real World Assets) track.

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