New York, January 14, 2026, 19:18 EST — After-hours
Circle Internet Group, Inc. shares climbed 1.7% in after-hours trading Wednesday, closing at $84.80. During the day, the stock fluctuated between $81.79 and $88.46. Roughly 14.3 million shares traded hands.
The shift comes as investors zero in on Washington’s approach to drafting new regulations for crypto and dollar-backed “stablecoins” — tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar’s value. For Circle, this isn’t just background chatter; it directly affects how USDC is employed in payments, trading, and settlement.
This week, U.S. senators unveiled a draft bill targeting crypto market structure, aiming to clarify when tokens qualify as securities or commodities and expanding the CFTC’s oversight of spot crypto markets. The proposal would prohibit crypto firms from paying interest solely for holding stablecoins, though rewards linked to activities like payments would remain allowed, alongside stricter disclosure rules, according to the draft and industry feedback. “Their demands to eliminate stablecoin rewards are designed to choke off consumer choice,” said Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association. 1
Circle unveiled a report Tuesday outlining its vision for an “internet financial system,” centered on its USDC and EURC stablecoins, a tokenized money market fund called USYC, and a forthcoming “Arc” layer-1 blockchain designed to run applications. The company said USDC onchain volume topped $9.6 trillion in Q3 2025, while its Circle Payments Network hit $3.4 billion in annualized transaction volume since launching in May 2025. “The financial system is going online,” CEO Jeremy Allaire declared. 2
Stablecoin payments are heating up. On Tuesday, Polygon Labs announced plans to acquire crypto payments company Coinme along with infrastructure provider Sequence for over $250 million. The move follows last year’s passage of the GENIUS Act and aims to boost Polygon’s push into stablecoin transactions, Reuters reported. CEO Marc Boiron described payments as “the killer use case” and expressed Polygon’s ambition to become a regulated U.S. payments player. Coinme, whose investors include Circle, was highlighted in the report. 3
Crypto markets picked up steam as Bitcoin climbed roughly 1.5%, with ether inching up around 0.5%. Shares of crypto-linked firms like Coinbase and Galaxy Digital also moved higher.
A separate SEC filing revealed that Circle director Bradley Horowitz moved a small pro-rata distribution of shares linked to an Accel fund into a family trust, not through an open-market sale. 4
Still, the policy angle works both ways. If lawmakers clamp down on rewards or drag their feet on the bill, traders could see it as another blow to the “regulated stablecoin” narrative — and Circle’s stock has proven it can react swiftly when appetite for crypto risk shifts.
Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee debate is now in the spotlight, with potential amendments poised to alter the stablecoin-rewards portion and challenge industry backing. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told Fortune, “We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.” Meanwhile, Ron Hammond, Wintermute’s policy chief, cautioned, “it’s crypto and there’s always last-second drama.” 5
