Circle is the stock I pay most attention to. I have always believed that a cross-disciplinary player can better understand this company. I have written a lot of content about it, and the investor who impressed me the most is Madame Wood. Her moves on this asset can be described as textbook-level: from "buying the open," to "selling at the high," and then "buying back at the low," she made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit through these maneuvers.
Interestingly, she is not a day trader. She is the type of person who looks at the narrative in the long term, then holds for the ultra long term regardless of fluctuations. However, her moves on this asset make me feel that she simply had a very clear grasp of the short-term volatility—clear to the extent that even a long-term holder had to briefly act.
As QNT is about to be listed, it is valuable to review Madame Wood's moves on Circle.
1. Buying the Open: Why Can a New Stock Double Before Trading Begins
In this IPO by Circle, 34 million shares were issued at a price of $31, raising about $11 billion. The underwriting syndicate (led by JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs) initially set the price range at $24 to $26, later raised it to $27 to $28, and finally settled at $31—a price that kept increasing was a signal of high demand.
According to Bloomberg, the issuance was oversubscribed by about 25 times; BlackRock also planned to take 10% of the issuance.
What truly determined the price surge at the open was the float.
Circle had a total of around 223 million shares outstanding at the time of listing, but only the 34 million shares issued in the IPO were actually traded, accounting for about 15% of the total outstanding shares. The remaining 85% of the shares, held by the founder, early investors, and employees, were subject to a lock-up period and could not be sold in the short term.
With the supply locked at this small number of 34 million shares but the demand stacked up 25 times oversubscribed, the two forces collided, and the price could only surge to find balance. As a result, Circle opened directly at $69 (123% above the issue price), touched $103.75 intraday (up 235%), and closed at $83.23 (up 168%).
This 168% first-day surge is the highest in a billion-dollar level U.S. stock IPO in over three decades.
This is the physical structure of a "opening spike": a hot sector, a small float, high oversubscription, when all three come together, the opening price is guaranteed to experience a significant gap-up. It is not directly related to whether the company is truly worth that price; it is purely because in the short term, there is far more "buying interest" than "selling pressure".
However, lock-up periods do not last forever. Once that locked-up 85% is released, the extreme supply-demand imbalance seen at the opening will gradually be filled, as evidenced by Circle's subsequent sharp drop.
II. Cathie Wood's Three Steps: Subscribe, Sell, Buy Back
Cathie Wood's positive view on Circle was not a decision made on the day of its listing. ARK has long been betting on crypto assets and digital financial infrastructure, and Cathie Wood herself has repeatedly expressed optimism about stablecoins. Therefore, she began to act on this investment even before the IPO.
1. Pre-listing: Acquiring Core Shares at the IPO Price
In Circle's prospectus, ARK expressed its intention to subscribe, planning to purchase up to $150 million worth of shares in this offering. In the end, it acquired about 4.49 million shares, distributed across ARKK, ARKW, ARKF, three actively managed funds. At the IPO price of $31, the cost was approximately $139 million, essentially reaching its self-imposed subscription limit.
To back Circle, ARK sold off some of its other crypto-related holdings on the listing day: approximately $39 million of Coinbase (COIN), around $18.5 million of Robinhood (HOOD), and about $10.4 million of Block (XYZ). It did not increase its crypto exposure but shifted positions from other crypto assets to Circle.
With a closing price of $83.23 on the first day of trading, the 4.49 million shares held by ARK were valued at around $373 million, leading to headlines stating "ARK purchases $373 million of Circle shares". However, $373 million is the market value of this position at the closing, not the cash cost paid by ARK, which was approximately $139 million at the IPO price. The tickets from the primary market had not even been touched by ordinary investors, and the books had already more than doubled in value. This portion of gains is what the IPO price allocation holders exclusively enjoyed in the "opening spike".
The first price seen by ordinary investors in the secondary market was $69, with ARK's cost close to $31.
2. Shipment Driven by Policy
Since its listing, Circle has been on a continuous rise. What truly propelled it to the sky was policy.
On June 17, 2025, the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act (Stablecoin Act) by 68 to 30, establishing a regulatory framework for the first time at the federal level for the U.S. dollar stablecoins. Upon this news, on June 18, Circle surged by 33.8% in a single day, closing at $199.59; the rally continued on the 20th; on the 23rd, it reached $298.99 intraday, marking its all-time high, with a market capitalization of approximately $66 billion. At that time, the total circulation of USDC was around $61.7 billion, meaning that the equity of Circle, the company, was once worth more than the total value of the stablecoins it issued.
During this policy-induced bullish trend, Woody sold off her holdings systematically.
The first sale was on June 16, approximately 340,000 shares at the closing price of $151.06; then on the 17th, 20th, and 23rd, she sold another batch each time, around 300,000 shares, 610,000 shares, and 420,000 shares, respectively. In total, she sold around 1.7 million shares through these four transactions, cashing out approximately $352 million, with an average price of around $210 calculated based on the closing price of those days. The cost of these shares was close to the issuance price of $31, so the price difference back and forth was quite substantial.
Why did she choose to sell at this point? There are two reasons.
One reason is discipline. ARK has a mechanical rule: if the weight of a single stock in a fund approaches or exceeds 10%, it triggers a rebalance. With Circle's rapid surge, the weight passively rose, forcing her to reduce her position.
The other reason is supply. As mentioned earlier, 85% of the shares were locked up and would be unlocked sooner or later. In fact, Circle set a clause for early unlock: if the stock price stays above 15% of the issue price for five consecutive trading days, it triggers the unlock. On August 13, JPMorgan released 11.5 million shares; On August 15, Circle issued another 10 million shares at a price of $130, with 8 million shares coming from existing shareholders' sales.
While policy pushed the price to the sky, the gates of supply were gradually opening. Smart money was well aware of this. Woody did not sell at the peak. She sold her first two batches around $150, and her final sale was at $263, while the stock price intraday reached as high as $299. Looking at each transaction, none of them were at the top. However, she was not betting on the peak; she was cashing out at different points of the rise, which is precisely a replicable approach—her subsequent repurchases followed a similar reflexive logic.
3. Buy the Dip
After reaching its peak on June 23, Circle began a months-long decline.
The downward pressure was layered:
· The $660 billion market cap had long deviated from its fundamentals;
· Unlocked supply continued to flood the market;
· Additionally, as the market began pricing in a Fed rate cut and Circle's revenue heavily relied on interest income from reserves, the rate cut directly impacted its profit expectations.
What goes up is all good news, what goes down is all bad news.
On November 12, Circle released its third-quarter financial report, with a net profit of $2.14 billion, triple the same period last year, and an earnings per share of $0.64, far exceeding the market's expected $0.20. The numbers looked impressive. However, the stock fell by 12% to $86.30 that day, with three reasons piling up:
· The lock-up period happened to expire two days later (November 14), allowing another batch of insiders to sell;
· The company revised its expense guidance upward;
· And concerns about the rate cut's impact on interest income.
A good financial report turned into "good news is all priced in".
On that day, Cathie Wood made her move again. She bought around 350,000 shares on November 12, worth around $30.4 million; then she bought again the next day, totaling around 540,000 shares over two days, worth around $46 million. Her average purchase price ranged from $82 to $86—this was her first buyback of Circle since reducing her position in June.
She continued to buy along the decline. In March 2026, during another major drop, Circle dipped back to around $100, and she invested around $16.3 million. Circle hit a low of $49.90, retracing 83% from its peak.
By the end of the first quarter of 2026, as per the 13F filing, ARK's holdings of Circle had returned to approximately 4.5 million shares, similar to the size on the listing day—the position she sold off above $200 and then bought back between $80 and $130. Today, CRCL is the sixth-largest holding in ARKK, with just ARKK holding around $300 million.
Her buying process was equally imperfect. The earliest purchases were made at over $80, and the stock later dipped to $50—those early buy orders were then stuck in a downtrend. However, she continued to dollar-cost average down along the decline, relying on the same unchanged conviction: a long-term bullish view on Circle's business model.
III. What Can Truly Be Learned
After reviewing the situation, besides the advantage of "low cost," three key factors made her performance outstanding:
First, having an independent assessment of Circle's endgame. The assessment was made before trading. She dared to heavily accumulate at a cost close to the offering price and started buying back when it dropped to over $80 because she believed stablecoins are the underlying infrastructure of the digital dollar, with USDC being a core part of it. Without this judgment, so-called buying at high prices and buying the dip would merely be different wordings for "chasing gains and capitulating losses."
Second, scaling out instead of timing the market. Selling off portions as it rallied, and buying back in segments as it plummeted. She sold in four tranches in June with an average price of around $210; during the decline, she bought back in many increments, from over $80 all the way down to around $50, then continued to add at $100 and $130 upon recovery. Each individual trade might not have been optimal, but collectively, it formed a clean "sell high, buy low" strategy. This approach doesn't require predicting tops and bottoms, only disciplined execution when extreme prices are reached.
Third, imposing a position limit. What forced her to scale out in June was largely the mechanical rule that "rebalance if a single position exceeds 10% weight." This rule locked in her profits when Circle surged to $299, and then allowed her to have cash and position room to buy back after the retracement.
Position discipline is the most lacking aspect for ordinary retail investors.
For most people, "IPO pop" is actually the riskiest move. That jump at the open is a bonus for those who got pre-IPO allocations; by the time regular folks can buy on the secondary market, what they are most likely to catch is the highest segment pushed up by imbalanced supply and demand. Circle plummeted from $299 to $50, retracing by 83%, those who chased it above $200 are likely still deep underwater today. Even though they both participated in Circle, Wooden Sister did it beautifully, relying on her endgame judgment, offering price cost basis, independent assessment, and position discipline. Without any of these, the outcome could be completely different.
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