Cathie Wood argues Wall Street payments analysts are underestimating the threat Circle poses to Visa and Mastercard, pointing to CRCL's 84% gain since its IPO against much smaller moves for the two card networks. Circle's Q2 2026 results and a growing rival stablecoin consortium — which includes Visa and Mastercard themselves — sit behind her argument.
Cathie Wood says the analysts covering Visa and Mastercard are missing the disruption sitting in front of them. The ARK Invest founder argued on August 23 that traditional payments analysts do not understand the threat Circle Internet Group poses to the two incumbents, even as CRCL shares have climbed 84% since the company's June 2025 IPO.
Visa and Mastercard, by contrast, have barely moved this year. Visa is up 5% year-to-date and Mastercard just 1%, a gap Wood reads as market inefficiency rather than market wisdom.
Circle's numbers back the thesis
Circle's recent results give Wood more than conviction to work with. The company reported net income of $48 million in Q2 2026, a sharp reversal from a loss in the prior-year period, while transaction revenue doubled over the same stretch.
USDC, Circle's dollar-pegged stablecoin, drives those results. It now commands 62% of market share in stablecoin transaction volumes, translating into roughly $849 billion in transaction volume as of July 2026. Zoom out further, and USDC processed a record $5.3 trillion in transactions during the first half of 2026.
CRCL shares themselves have had a rougher ride than the headline gain suggests. The stock debuted at $31 on June 5, 2025, and briefly touched nearly $299 before pulling back, and it now trades about 58% below that peak. A 30% rally in July, fueled by the strong Q2 earnings report, helped rebuild some of the lost ground.
A rival consortium complicates the picture
Wood's bullish case does not exist in a vacuum. Circle faces a new challenger in the Open USD consortium, which launched around June 30, 2026, backed by Stripe, Coinbase, and BlackRock among others. Notably, Visa and Mastercard have also joined the OUSD consortium, even as their equity research desks may not be sounding the alarm on stablecoin disruption.
For Circle, having Coinbase, one of its closest historical partners, back a rival stablecoin adds complexity that market-share numbers alone don't capture.
The argument behind the argument
Traditional payments analysts model Visa and Mastercard on card-network transaction volumes, interchange fees, and cross-border revenue. Wood's point is that those models look outdated once a stablecoin can move trillions of dollars at a fraction of the cost of card rails.
ARK Invest has held a significant CRCL position through the stock's swings. Circle's own shift away from a business built mainly on USDC reserve yield, toward a broader payments-infrastructure and blockchain-services model, suggests its management sees the same shift Wood describes.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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