Key Insights:
- Circle stock price posted its worst single-day drop since its June 2025 IPO after a leaked CLARITY Act Senate draft moved to ban passive stablecoin yield.
- The selloff broke CRCL’s 20-day EMA for only the second time in its public trading history. The previous break led to a roughly 52% decline.
- The bill still needs 60 Senate votes and a late April markup before becoming law.
Circle stock price posted its worst day since its IPO after a leaked CLARITY Act draft moved to kill passive stablecoin yield. But the chart says the real damage may just be starting, and it could send the CRCL price towards the $50 zone.
CLARITY Act Draft Bans Passive Stablecoin Yield
Circle’s stock, CRCL, cratered over 20% on March 24 after details appeared from the latest Senate draft of the CLARITY Act. The proposed language bans rewards for simply holding a stablecoin and prohibits anything “economically equivalent to interest” on stablecoin balances.
The bill does allow a narrow carve-out for activity-based rewards tied to loyalty programs, transactions, and platform usage. But the mechanics of what counts as “activity” remain vague.
This matters because yield sharing has been a core driver of USDC adoption. Coinbase currently offers 3.5% on stablecoin holdings, and roughly 20% of its quarterly revenue comes from its USDC distribution partnership with Circle. The CLARITY Act would effectively shut that down.
Coinbase stock dropped around 10% on the same day. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had already pulled support from an earlier Senate draft back in January over yield limits, temporarily stalling the markup process.
What made the timing worse was Tether. On the same day the draft leaked, Tether announced it had hired a Big Four accounting firm to conduct a full audit of its USDT reserves for the first time.
Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terrett pointed out something worth noting. The yield restriction had been publicly reported and discussed for months through statements from lawmakers like Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks.
“It’s still surprising to see the stock react this way given how public this has been,” Terrett wrote on X.
Circle Stock Price Chart Just Flashed a Big Warning
Beyond the headlines, the technical picture is where things get uncomfortable for CRCL holders.
The selloff broke Circle’s 20-day EMA, a level that has only been breached once before in the stock’s short history as a public company since its June 2025 IPO. That previous break led to a roughly 52% decline from peak to trough.
If the same pattern plays out again, CRCL would be heading toward the $49 to $52 range. That is not a prediction, but the historical precedent is hard to ignore when it is the only comparable data point available.
Before it gets there, the stock has a few levels to contend with. The 50-day and 100-day EMAs sit at roughly $94 and $97, respectively, and those are the first real lines of defense.
Below that, $68 is the next major support zone. Only if all of those fail does the $50 area come into play. CRCL closed Monday at $126 and hit intraday lows near $98 on Tuesday. That is already a significant chunk of damage in a single session.
Circle Stock Price: The Bull Case Has Not Disappeared
All’s not lost for the CRCL stock price yet. Circle reported Q4 2025 revenue of $770 million, up 77% year over year. Baird raised its price target on CRCL to $138 just weeks ago and reiterated an Outperform rating.
Circle is also expanding aggressively outside the US through an EU lobbying push and an Africa rollout via a Sasai Fintech partnership.
The CLARITY Act still needs Senate votes. At present, Polymarket puts the odds of the bill actually signing into law in 2026 at around 63%.
So, there is a real chance this language gets softened or reworked before it becomes final. But until the market gets that clarity, the Circle stock price is trading like the worst case is already here.