Circle Internet Corp. closed at $86.30, a decline of 11.41 percent.

Large options activity in CRCL leaned decisively bearish, with a combined $5.45 million in premium directed toward long-dated puts. A $2.60 million net debit put spread and a $2.85 million outright put purchase dominated the tape, both expiring in 2028. The flow shows traders actively positioning for continued downside, using defined-risk and convex structures rather than selling premium.

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Options Indicators

CRCL’s implied volatility is 83.90%, while its IV percentile stands at 26.29%, indicating that although the absolute IV level is high, it sits in the lower end of its own historical range. In other words, current option pricing is relatively cheap compared with where this stock’s volatility has typically traded, and with an IV/HV ratio of 0.87, implied volatility is also running below realized volatility, suggesting the options market is not demanding an especially rich premium at the moment.

The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.07, a seemingly neutral level that masks the bearish concentration seen in the largest trades, where put buyers dominated both in structure and dollar size.

Large Trades

A bear put spread with a net debit of $2.60 million was the largest featured structure, pairing a long 90.00 put with a short 60.00 put for the 2028-12-15 expiration. With CRCL referenced at $86.30, the purchased 90.00 put was in the money while the sold 60.00 put was out of the money, creating a defined-risk bearish spread that profits from downside toward the lower strike while capping maximum gains below $60.00. The net debit structure shows the trader was willing to pay premium for downside exposure rather than collect income, pointing to a deliberate bearish directional bet with risk contained by the short lower-strike put.

A put buy worth $2.85 million was the other displayed large trade, consisting of a single-leg purchase of the 60.00 put expiring 2028-12-15. With the stock at $86.30, this strike was out of the money, so the trade represents a relatively lower-delta but still meaningful downside wager that would benefit from a substantial decline over time. As a standalone long put, it signals outright bearish positioning and suggests the buyer was seeking convex downside exposure rather than hedging through a spread or offsetting structure.

Overall, the large-trade flow was clearly bearish, with both highlighted orders focused on long downside exposure in long-dated puts; the preference for paying premium in a bear put spread and an outright put purchase indicates traders were positioning for weakness in CRCL rather than neutral income generation or bullish recovery.

Strategy Reference

For traders unwilling to take directional short risk, selling the $55.00 put expiring 2028-12-15 offers a low assignment probability below the featured $60.00 support, while a bear call spread using the $95.00/$105.00 strikes would express a bearish view with reduced premium outlay compared to the long put structures observed today.