Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has cut about 5% of its workforce.
The cuts were disclosed in footnotes to Circle’s third-quarter earnings release on Wednesday, 4 November. The company said the move was “designed to better align our organizational structure with our operating model and strategic priorities.”
Circle did not say how many employees were affected or which teams were cut.
The cost of the cuts
Circle booked $9.1 million in restructuring costs, mostly cash for notice periods and severance pay, along with employee benefits and related costs. That was partly offset by a $5.7 million reversal of share-based pay, as departing staff gave up shares that had not yet vested.
CEO Jeremy Allaire did not mention the job cuts in his comments on the results, or in a post describing the third quarter as “a big quarter for Circle.”
A profitable quarter
The cuts came alongside strong headline results. Net income from continuing operations rose 5% on a year earlier to $226 million, while total revenue and reserve income climbed 17% to $865 million. Adjusted EBITDA jumped 85% to $317 million.
Other revenue reached $207 million, boosted by $182 million from the presale of ARC, the token for Circle’s Arc blockchain.
Reserve income, the interest Circle earns on the assets backing USDC, fell 8% to $658 million as interest rates declined.
USDC growth slows
Average USDC in circulation was $73.3 billion, up 8% on a year earlier, and ended the quarter flat at $73.9 billion. USDC’s share of the US dollar stablecoin market slipped to 27%.
Allaire highlighted other figures. He said USDC carried 79% of all stablecoin transaction volume, up from 66% a year earlier, and that Circle’s payments network ended the quarter at $41 billion in annualised volume, up 15-fold.
Part of a wider trend
Circle joins a string of crypto companies that have cut staff this year. Coinbase cut 14% of its workforce in May, and the Ethereum Foundation and BitGo cut 20% and 15% respectively in June. Luno cut a fifth of its global staff in July, and Bitwise cut 14% in August.
What happens next
Allaire pointed to the US GENIUS Act, which he said takes effect in January, writing that “every layer of our platform is live and ready for it.” Investors will be watching whether falling interest rates keep squeezing Circle’s reserve income, and whether USDC can win back market share.
