Bernstein keeps $140 Circle target even if CLARITY Act fails

cryptonews08-24 18:32

Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating and $140 price target on Circle Internet Group, implying about 59% upside after CRCL closed Friday at $87.98, as the brokerage expects USDC adoption to ...

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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nBernstein keeps $140 Circle target even if CLARITY Act fails\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-08-24 18:32 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://crypto.news/bernstein-keeps-140-circle-target-even-if-clarity-act-fails/><strong>cryptonews</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating and $140 price target on Circle Internet Group, implying about 59% upside after CRCL closed Friday at $87.98, as the brokerage expects USDC adoption to ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://crypto.news/bernstein-keeps-140-circle-target-even-if-clarity-act-fails/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":null,"symbol_name":null,"start_time":0,"source_url":"https://crypto.news/bernstein-keeps-140-circle-target-even-if-clarity-act-fails/","article_id":"2661278468","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":{"source":"crypto_news_highlight","url":"https://crypto.news/bernstein-keeps-140-circle-target-even-if-clarity-act-fails/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2661278468","pubTimestamp":1787567572,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"crypto_news_highlight","name":"Crypto News"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating and $140 price target on Circle Internet Group, implying about 59% upside after CRCL closed Friday at $87.98, as the brokerage expects USDC adoption to support the company even without passage of the CLARITY Act.Bernstein maintained its Outperform rating and $140 Circle price target, implying about 59% upside from Friday’s close.USDC supply increased by about $1.7 billion over the past week after nearly six months of largely flat growth.Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume is tracking at a $17 trillion annualized rate through July, according to Bernstein.Bernstein said Circle’s growth cycle can continue even if the CLARITY Act does not pass in September.Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chhugani said in an Aug. 24 note that Circle’s next growth cycle does not depend on Congress passing the U.S. crypto market structure bill during the September session.After spending almost six months largely flat, USDC supply increased by about $1.7 billio","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"crypto.news","property":["earning"],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{},"translate_title":"即使《清晰法案》失败，伯恩斯坦仍维持 140 美元的圈子目标","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ac01939b6e6a2a744ca349b02a0f895e","symbols_score_info":{"CRCG":0.6,"CRCD":0.6,"BKCH":0.6,"IBLC":0.6,"ICRC":0.6,"CRCL":1.97,"CRCA":0.6,"CCUP":0.6,"BLCK":0.6,"CIR":0.6,"CRCO":0.6},"content_text":"Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating and $140 price target on Circle Internet Group, implying about 59% upside after CRCL closed Friday at $87.98, as the brokerage expects USDC adoption to support the company even without passage of the CLARITY Act.\n\n\nSummary\n\n\n\nBernstein maintained its Outperform rating and $140 Circle price target, implying about 59% upside from Friday’s close.\nUSDC supply increased by about $1.7 billion over the past week after nearly six months of largely flat growth.\nAdjusted stablecoin transaction volume is tracking at a $17 trillion annualized rate through July, according to Bernstein.\nBernstein said Circle’s growth cycle can continue even if the CLARITY Act does not pass in September.\nCircle said more than 900 paid services use Agent Stack, with 99.3% of x402 agent payment volume settling in USDC.\n\n\n\nBernstein analysts led by Gautam Chhugani said in an Aug. 24 note that Circle’s next growth cycle does not depend on Congress passing the U.S. crypto market structure bill during the September session.\nCircle shares gained more than 5% on Aug. 21 before closing at $87.98, according to Yahoo Finance data. The $140 target would put the stock about 59% above Friday’s closing price, although it remains below Bernstein’s previous $190 target from earlier this year.\nChhugani’s team tied its outlook to several sources of demand, including stablecoin payments, blockchain-based capital markets, tokenized assets and payments made by autonomous software agents.\nThe analysts also pointed to changes in global liquidity conditions. Bernstein said Bitcoin has benefited from demand for scarce assets while stablecoins have become another destination for dollars as the U.S. Treasury issues more short-term government debt.\nUSDC supply has started expanding again\nAfter spending almost six months largely flat, USDC supply increased by about $1.7 billion during the past week, according to Bernstein.\nThe brokerage said USDC has become an important collateral asset across decentralized finance, tokenized equities, prediction markets and perpetual futures tied to real-world assets. Bernstein estimated that Circle’s stablecoin accounts for about 80% of decentralized exchange trading and finance volumes.\nStablecoin activity outside speculative trading is also expanding, according to the firm. Adjusted transaction volume, which Bernstein said excludes bots and high-frequency activity, reached about $11 trillion during 2025 and was running at an annualized pace of roughly $17 trillion through July 2026.\nThat pace represented an increase of about 60% from a year earlier, according to the brokerage.\nCircle has also been expanding the institutional infrastructure through which businesses can use USDC. In July, crypto.news reported Circle received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Circle National Trust, a federally supervised national trust bank.\nThe approval allows the institution to provide digital asset custody services and could eventually place management of reserves backing USDC within the federally regulated entity, according to Circle.\nInstitutional access has expanded through banks and digital asset infrastructure providers as well. Circle said during its second-quarter results that Standard Chartered had introduced direct USDC minting and redemption access for institutional customers.\nA separate July integration also brought USDC settlement through Fireblocks, allowing institutions to manage USDC balances across supported blockchains and route payments into local fiat currencies through Circle Payments Network.\nFireblocks said stablecoins accounted for 69% of transaction volume across its platform during the second quarter, while Circle said its Payments Network reached $14.7 billion in annualized transaction volume at the end of the quarter.\nCircle sees agent payments as another USDC market\nMachine-to-machine payments form another part of Bernstein’s Circle thesis, with the analysts pointing to USDC’s early lead in payments made through the x402 protocol.\nCircle launched Agent Stack in May as infrastructure that allows software agents to hold assets, discover services and make programmable payments.\nBy the second quarter, Circle said the platform had more than 900 paid services, while 99.3% of x402 agent-payment volume was settling in USDC.\nIndependent data has also shown heavy USDC use in the category. A Keyrock report covered in May found that AI agents had settled $73 million across 176 million transactions over 12 months, with USDC handling 98.6% of those payments.\nCircle has built Agent Wallets, an agent marketplace and nanopayment tools around the same use case. The company said Agent Stack lets developers set spending limits, allowlists and other controls while permitting agents to make USDC transactions without requiring a human to approve each payment.\nFor Bernstein, adoption of such services could create another source of stablecoin transaction demand outside cryptocurrency trading.\nCLARITY Act outcome does not change Bernstein’s Circle thesis\nRegulation remains one of the largest variables for Circle because U.S. lawmakers are still negotiating how stablecoin rewards and digital asset market structure should work.\nBernstein said the outcome of the CLARITY Act would not materially change its investment case.\n“We believe, this growth cycle is independent of the Clarity Act passing in the September session,” the analysts wrote.\nThe brokerage said failure to secure Senate support during the expected Sept. 15 vote could prompt the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to take a larger role in providing regulatory guidance.\n\n“We believe, the SEC/CFTC intervention would accelerate if the Senate does not support Clarity in the Sept. 15 vote,” Bernstein said.\n\nStablecoin rewards remain one of the contested parts of the legislation. Under the scenario outlined by Bernstein, failure of the bill would leave third-party reward programs operating under the existing model.\nIf the legislation passes, the analysts expect rewards to become more closely tied to customer activity instead of payments simply for holding an idle stablecoin balance.\nBernstein views either structure as workable for USDC.\nIts view has remained consistent even as the language around stablecoin incentives has changed. In May, Bernstein backed Circle’s regulatory position after lawmakers advanced language that restricted deposit-like yield on passive stablecoin balances.\nAt the time, the brokerage said such restrictions could prevent stablecoin issuers from competing mainly by paying higher returns to token holders, reducing pressure on Circle to enter what the analysts described as an interest-rate competition.\nBanking groups have since pushed lawmakers to tighten the rules further. Several U.S. banking organizations urged Senate leaders in July to revise provisions dealing with stablecoin rewards, arguing that some structures could still function like interest-bearing accounts.\nCircle faces competition as payment infrastructure expands\nBernstein’s bullish call comes as Circle faces increased competition from other regulated stablecoin models.\nOpen USD has emerged as one challenge because its consortium structure distributes part of the reserve economics to participating companies, creating a different model from Circle’s approach of earning income from the assets backing USDC.\nMizuho downgraded Circle to Underperform in July and cut its target to $50, citing pressure that Open USD could place on Circle’s margins.\nCircle President Heath Tarbert later defended the company’s position, arguing that USDC’s liquidity, existing integrations and regulatory infrastructure would be difficult for new competitors to reproduce quickly.\nCircle has continued adding payment partners while competition develops. Its agreement with Japan’s JCB, announced in July, includes tests of USDC for corporate treasury transfers before possible use in merchant payments, while separate partnerships with Kakao and Toss are examining stablecoin settlement and programmable payments in South Korea.\nUSDC also entered BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform in June, allowing institutional customers to mint, redeem, hold, and transfer the stablecoin through the bank.\nBernstein disclosed that Chhugani holds long positions in several cryptocurrencies and that the brokerage or its affiliates have maintained investment banking or other business relationships with Circle during the past 12 months.\n\n\n\n\n\n                Read more:\n            \n\n                Ethereum price rises 29% as Tom Lee says rotation has begun","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":false,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"express","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"isLaohu8Offline":false,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.47.1","shortVersion":"4.47.1","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2661278468","isCrawlerRequest":true}