Circle stock crashes 22% as U.S. bill targets stablecoin rewards

Circle (CRCL) sank about 22%, its worst drop since June 2025, after a tougher CLARITY Act draft threatened to ban stablecoin yield, clashing with booming USDC growth.

Circle Internet Group shares plunged on Tuesday after fresh reports that U.S. lawmakers are tightening a key stablecoin bill to restrict yield and rewards, triggering an aggressive sell-off in one of the market’s highest-beta crypto stocks.

Real-time data shows Circle trading at about $98.71 on the NYSE under ticker CRCL, down $27.93 or 22.05% on the day, with intraday lows near $98.31 after opening at $126.35 and closing Monday at $126.64. Intellectia.ai and other market trackers said the drop reached roughly 18% by midday, marking Circle’s largest one-day percentage decline since June 2025.

Circle’s slump came alongside a broader crypto-equities sell-off, with Coinbase (COIN) down more than 7% to roughly $178.10 and Robinhood (HOOD) off 4.7%, after a draft of the CLARITY Act circulated in Washington. According to summary of the draft, the latest language would “ban yield on stablecoins across exchanges,” effectively prohibiting interest-style rewards on tokens like USDC, a core revenue lever for both Circle and Coinbase. The bill is being viewed as a direct threat to Circle’s stablecoin-payments and rewards infrastructure, calling the proposed limits on yield “critical” to its platform economics and a key driver of Tuesday’s 22% intraday fall.

The price action is striking because it collides with still-strong fundamentals for USDC. Yahoo Finance recently noted that Circle’s stock nearly tripled from its $31 IPO price on June 5, 2025 and at one point almost touched $299, buoyed by optimism around U.S. stablecoin legislation. Circle’s own “Internet Financial System in 2026” report highlighted that USDC in circulation has expanded sharply alongside rising reserve income, while Intellectia.ai cited Baird as telling clients that USDC outstanding averaged $75.2 billion through March 15, up 6% since the firm’s last earnings report. Baird raised its price target on Circle to $138 from $110 and reiterated an Outperform rating, arguing there is a “real path” to new revenue via products like Circle Payments Network and Arc Blockchain.

Reuters reported in February that Circle beat Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter revenue on the back of stronger stablecoin circulation and higher interest income on reserves, sending the stock up nearly 30% in a single session at the time. Yet CRCL now trades below $100, roughly 35% below last week’s peak near $150 and more than 20% off the intraday highs it set earlier in March, even as USDC leads 2026 stablecoin flows and on-chain usage has jumped 600% year-to-date. That disconnect between booming token metrics and a stock that has just erased nearly a fifth of its value in one day captures the core investor dilemma: as long as U.S. lawmakers treat stablecoin rewards as quasi-banking, Circle’s equity seems to know be trading as much on the Hill’s mood as on USDC’s growth curve.