#稳定币业务 Seeing the recent market trend of CRC, I am reminded of those days in 2017. It was the same back then - the financial reports were incredibly good, the rise numbers were shocking, yet the stock price was falling. At that time, we all felt confused, but it now appears that this actually reflects a misunderstanding of the essence of the business model by the market.

The story of CRCL is quite interesting. On the surface, it shows a high rise—Q3 revenue of $740 million, a year-on-year increase of 66%, and USDC circulation doubling to 73.7 billion. But digging deeper, you will find that the company's profit structure is actually quite fragile. 60% of the revenue is eaten up by distribution costs, and 71% of the profit comes from changes in the fair value of investments, leaving very little money earned through scale and efficiency. What’s even more painful is that Coinbase has to share 61% of the profits while struggling to make ends meet in a rate-cutting cycle.

This reminds me of those "parasitic" businesses in the past - seemingly prosperous, but actually profiting from policy dividends. Once the environment changes, the entire logic could collapse. When US treasury yields return to around 2%, with operating costs close to 1%, what will be left after deducting profit sharing?

But there is an interesting contradiction here. Some say that the essence of CRCL is to "buy the market," exchanging current profit-sharing costs for future discourse power—similar to what Amazon and Pinduoduo did back in the day. If stablecoins really are heading towards a winner-takes-all scenario, the structure that seems absurd today might actually be laying the groundwork for the future. The question is, will players like JPMorgan really allow CRCL to monopolize? Additionally, there is an overlooked problem—U.S. tax law treats USDC as an asset rather than cash, meaning that each payment could involve capital gains tax. This will inherently limit the ceiling of USDC in retail payments.

The wave of unlocking has arrived, and short-term uncertainty is definitely still present. However, the price has fallen from 298 to 83, which is not considered expensive from a trading perspective. The key is to clarify: is CRCL in the early stages of building infrastructure, or is it consuming a margin that is destined to be eroded? This determines whether you should wait or observe.