Circle President Heath Tarbert has sold roughly $30.77 million of the company’s stock across 10 transactions since June 2025, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form 4 filings, with every disclosed sale executed under a preset trading plan.
What the Filings Show
The transactions span from Circle’s June 2025 market debut through June 2026. The largest was a sale of 122,007 shares on March 2 at an average price of $94.23, worth about $11.5 million. Others include 43,694 shares at $117.80 in March, 31,925 shares at $127.08 in August 2025, and most recently 39,240 shares at an average of $81.47 on June 10.
The earliest disclosed sale, 80,000 shares at $29.30, dates to June 6, 2025, immediately following Circle’s IPO. The remaining transactions were a mix of open-market sales and option exercises.
Following the June sale, Tarbert directly held 502,558 shares. That figure requires context: filing footnotes show only 55,418 were held outright, with the remaining 447,140 subject to restricted stock units that vest over time. The fluctuations visible in his reported holdings across filings reflect RSU vesting rather than accumulation.
Every Sale Was Pre-Scheduled
The most important detail is one the raw numbers do not convey. Footnotes on each Form 4 state that the sales were made pursuant to Rule 10b5-1 trading plans — pre-arranged programs that set trade parameters in advance.
Such plans exist specifically to separate an executive’s transactions from any view they may hold about the company or any information they may possess. Once established, the schedule executes regardless of where the share price sits on a given day. The timing of a 10b5-1 sale, therefore, carries no signal about the seller’s outlook, which is the point of the mechanism.
That distinction matters here because of when the sales occurred. Prices in the filings step down from $127.08 in August 2025 through $117.80 and $94.23 in March to $81.47 in June—a descent that tracks the stock rather than any decision to accelerate.
Tarbert has publicly defended the company’s trajectory. Asked by FOX Business about CRCL’s fall from around $260 to $62, he said Circle remains focused on the long term and that if it succeeds in building financial infrastructure for the internet, “the stock will take care of itself.”
He Is Not the Only Seller
Other Circle insiders have transacted on similar terms. Chief Product and Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok exercised options for 10,000 shares at $25.81 and sold the same quantity at $111.00 in May, also under a 10b5-1 plan. Separate sales of 3,032 shares went through at a weighted average of $63.76 roughly two weeks ago, held through an irrevocable non-grantor trust whose beneficiary is Tarbert’s child and over which he disclaims beneficial ownership.
What the filings do not show is buying. No open-market purchases by insiders have been disclosed across the period in which the stock fell from its highs, though the absence of such purchases is common at companies where executives are compensated primarily in equity.
ARK Has Been Doing the Opposite
While insiders sold on schedule, one institutional holder moved decisively the other way. ARK Invest purchased 220,012 CRCL shares across three actively managed ETFs on July 14, worth approximately $13.9 million at that session’s closing price of $63.22—extending one of the firm’s most persistent dip-buying campaigns of 2026.
The purchase came the same day Mizuho downgraded Circle to Underperform, arguing investors were overly optimistic about the company’s regulatory progress, and Baird cut its price target to $100 from $138.
The stock has shed more than 40% in the past month and roughly 68% over the past year, trading near the bottom of a 52-week range of $49.90 to $262.97. The pressure has come principally from the launch of Open USD, a rival dollar stablecoin backed by a coalition of more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock, compounded by Circle’s removal from five Russell growth indexes in June.
What It Adds Up To
The filings describe two different sets of decisions made on different logic. Insider sales under 10b5-1 plans reflect schedules set in advance and are a routine feature of equity compensation, particularly at companies whose executives hold large RSU positions. ARK’s purchases reflect an active judgment about value at current prices.
Neither is a prediction. Circle received final OCC approval on July 10 to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that briefly lifted the shares before the gain faded, and the competitive question posed by Open USD remains unresolved.
For investors, the useful takeaway from the Form 4 record is narrower than it first appears: a president who has sold $30.8 million of stock still holds a position dominated by unvested equity whose value depends entirely on where the shares trade when it vests.
