Circle drops after 10 million share offering with top shareholders and CEO reducing their positions
Stablecoin giant Circle announced a secondary stock sale of 10 million shares. The company will offer 10 million shares of its Class A common stock, with selling stockholders offering 8 million of those shares, according to a press release. Underwriters have an option to purchase an additional 1.5 million shares.
The stock was down 2% in premarket trading.
The majority of the offering is effectively a liquidity event for some of Circle’s largest holders and insiders. Assuming the underwriters’ option is not exercised, IDG Capital will sell 1.17 million, General Catalyst will unload 1.12 million, and Fidelity’s position will be down by about 750,000 shares. Private equity firms Oak Investment Partners and Accel are also owners of 5% of the company and are reducing their exposure in this offering, while CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire is selling 357,812 shares.
Circle’s lockup period is poised to expire on either the second trading day following the release of earnings for the quarter ending September 30, 2025 (i.e., about three months from now) or 180 days after its initial public offering — whichever comes first. This secondary offering allows some important shareholders to book gains after the stock’s hot post-IPO run.
Circle expects to raise $309.4 million to $542.6 million from this offering, depending on how much (or whether) underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares.
The announcement came hours after the company released its first earnings report as a public company, beating analysts’ revenue estimates but missing on earnings-per-share estimates. It also comes two months after its massive IPO.
Circle issues USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar that has a $65 billion market cap and is the second-largest stablecoin. Its circulation “grew 90% year-over-year to $61.3 billion at quarter end, and has grown an additional 6.4% to $65.2 billion as of August 10, 2025,” per the earnings report.
Some of the risk factors of the offering include that the company faces “intense and increasing competition” and that “stablecoins may face periods of uncertainty, loss of trust, or systemic shocks resulting in the potential for rapid redemption requests (or runs),” per the SEC filing.
