Circle's (CRCL) market capitalization reached $25.7 billion at Friday’s close, making it the best-performing crypto-related equity in 2026 with a roughly 30% gain, while Coinbase (COIN) trails the group at down 10%.

Circle's revenue is effectively a levered play on USDC supply and short-term Treasury yields.

The circulating supply of USDC is up 3.7% year-to-date and over 30% in the last 12 months, while rates have been declining, meaning Circle's revenue from an absolute reserve base expansion outpaced the revenue lost due to yield compression.

On the other hand, the October 2025 crypto liquidation cascade destroyed speculative trading volume, negatively impacting Coinbase's trading fee revenue, which its Base L2 and staking revenue likely could not offset.

The second-order observation is the dispersion itself among crypto-related equities.

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Most crypto-related stocks now have their own unique business models that respond to different drivers.

For example, Circle to stablecoin supply and rates, Strategy (MSTR) to the spot BTC price, and Coinbase to trading volumes and token prices of its venture portfolio. This dispersion is likely to rewrite how institutional crypto allocations are constructed.

Years ago, traditional institutional investors seeking crypto exposure beyond spot BTC or ETH likely bought Coinbase stock as a proxy. Going forward, the stablecoin adoption thesis can now be expressed through Circle, the BTC treasury thesis through Strategy, and pure crypto beta through Coinbase.

The key question is whether the U.S. stablecoin regulatory framework drives meaningful competition among bank-issued dollar tokens in 2026.

As Circle's moat lies in distribution and brand, a JPMorgan- or BofA-issued tokenized dollar with equivalent regulatory standing would quickly compress CRCL multiples.

This is an excerpt from The Block's Data & Insights newsletter. Dig into the numbers making up the industry's most thought-provoking trends.