If you're an investor who only looks at "fundamentals," you're likely not well-suited for investing in the crypto industry, because fundamentals in this sector are defined by "liquidity"—which is highly cyclical and can change rapidly. Look back at 2022: Coinbase and Robinhood, the top-performing crypto-related stocks from the previous cycle, would not have appeared to be attractive opportunities for buying the dip. That year, Coinbase’s revenue dropped 60% compared to the prior year; media outlets constantly declared the crypto industry dead. You likely also believed that Coinbase could never compete with traditional financial giants launching BTC ETFs, and that its altcoin business would be largely overtaken by DEXs like Uniswap. Robinhood’s revenue also fell 25% year-over-year. Its business model—offering zero fees to users while monetizing order flow to market makers—seemed fundamentally flawed. Meanwhile, new entrants into the crypto market had been crushed by Coinbase’s dominance; with the U.S. stock market already mature, where would future growth come from? Yet history proved that 2022 was precisely the best time to buy Coinbase and Robinhood. Today, CRCL is even more attractive than Coinbase and Robinhood were four years ago—at least its revenue hasn’t contracted, its stablecoin issuance remains roughly flat, and real competition hasn’t yet arrived. But when the market questions whether interest income is a viable business model, when executives cash out, when concerns arise about Stripe’s competing stablecoin, and when Morgan Stanley sets a $30 price target, it’s easy to let these short-term noise signals drown out the truly critical information. What is truly critical? - The demand for tokenization of traditional financial assets has been validated and is growing at double-digit percentages per month. - The U.S. is aggressively promoting the adoption of stablecoins, which will become the primary channel for America to export dollars, U.S. Treasuries, and U.S. equities globally. - Native crypto use cases—from perpetual DEXs to prediction markets—are rapidly expanding into Web2, and all of them require stablecoins. - USDC is the largest and most widely used compliant stablecoin in the U.S. In my view, Circle reaching a valuation above $100 billion in this cycle is inevitable.