Cathie Wood pushed back against Wall Street skepticism toward Circle Internet Group (CRCL), arguing that a one-year chart showing Circle down about 42%, Visa up roughly 5%, and Mastercard roughly flat reflects short-term public-market inefficiency rather than fundamental weakness. Wood wrote that Circle had appreciated 84% since its IPO and that many financial-services analysts steeped in Visa and Mastercard cannot properly value the stablecoin issuer; based on the $31 June 2025 IPO price and Friday’s close of $87.98, the post-IPO gain is about 184%. She cited Mastercard’s roughly 150-fold rise since its 2006 listing and Visa’s about 33-fold gain since 2008 as precedents for disruptive payment networks. ARK Invest held $481.43 million of CRCL across ARKK, ARKW and ARKF, with ARKK alone owning 3,931,968 shares worth $329 million, or 5.14% of the fund, its largest crypto position ahead of Coinbase. Among 21 analysts, 11 rate the stock strong buy and two buy, five hold and three sell, with targets from $37 to $173 and an average of $98.61. Circle issues USDC, earns much of its revenue from interest on cash and short-term U.S. government debt reserves, grew revenue about 37% in the latest quarter and posted a surprise profit in early August even as market value fell 30%; Q2 2026 net income was $48 million with doubled transaction revenue, while USDC held 62% transaction-volume share, processed about $849 billion as of July 2026 and $5.3 trillion in the first half of 2026. Shares closed Friday up 5.16% at $87.98 and were off 1.16% in Monday pre-market trading.