The conflict between Circle and the so-called "CircleMetals" erupted on Christmas Eve: a confirmed forged "new product launch" press release spread within the community, with a fraudulent platform borrowing the Circle brand and executive images, claiming to offer 24/7 exchanges of USDC and GLDC/SILC, along with an additional 1.25% CIRM token reward, enticing users to connect their wallets. As of December 24, 2025, there is no publicly available loss data regarding this brand forgery incident, but it has rapidly amplified discussions related to USDC, creating marginal shocks to the trust structure in the tokenized asset sector. In the short term, the direct impact on funds and prices remains limited; the real concern is the high-reuse scam template formed by the combination of relaxed information scrutiny during the holiday season and brand forgery narratives, as well as the defensive capabilities of project parties, users, and regulators under this new template.
Core of the Incident
On December 24, 2025, at 8:00 AM UTC+8, a Circle spokesperson clearly stated to the media, "CircleMetals is completely fake, and the related press release is forged." CEO Jeremy Allaire also emphasized on social media, "We have never launched a CircleMetals product." The core facts that can be cross-verified are: someone forged a press release and official tone, impersonated the Circle brand and executive images, launched a platform called CircleMetals, and induced users to participate in so-called exchanges and reward programs using USDC through fictitious tokens like GLDC, SILC, and CIRM.
From publicly available information, this fake press release attempted to construct a narrative framework of "precious metals + tokens," claiming to support 24/7 exchanges of USDC and GLDC/SILC, along with a 1.25% CIRM reward, creating an investment scenario of "high liquidity + additional returns." Community security researchers (including ZachXBT, a single source) have classified CircleMetals as a scam website and warned users to stay away from GLDC/SILC exchanges and CIRM reward-related content. Circle chose to quickly deny the claims, clearly delineating business boundaries to reduce trust volatility in the USDC ecosystem.
Incentive Analysis
From the information perspective, the trigger points of this incident are very concentrated: first, the forged press release itself; second, the precise imitation of Circle's brand and executive statements; third, the seemingly professional product system built around GLDC/SILC/CIRM. In the design of the information flow, the forgers used a highly realistic "new product launch" document, overlaying brand logos, executive quotes, and technical jargon, attempting to lower readers' vigilance at first glance and directly treat the content as an official announcement.
Currently, there is a lack of publicly available, verifiable data supporting the actual flow of funds; the research brief also did not provide any on-chain amounts or victim scale information, meaning we cannot seriously discuss specific fundraising amounts and funding paths. The only thing we can confirm is that the design goal of this scam is to attract users to connect their wallets on CircleMetals-related pages, completing asset transfers through the so-called "exchange" and "reward" processes. Since key data such as contract addresses and on-chain activities have not been disclosed, the market can only infer potential risks from structural and motivational aspects, without providing any quantitative conclusions on the amount.
Emotionally, such scam platforms that bear a high resemblance to the names of leading issuers inherently carry an effect of "amplifying trust," and the holiday timing further magnified the speed of dissemination and impact radius. The chain-like spread of screenshots and retweets on social media allowed the fake press release to gain attention far exceeding that of ordinary scam sites in a short time, forcing Circle to break its usual release rhythm during the holiday season to quickly provide denials and clarifications.
Deep Logic
If we set aside specific technical details and only look at the narrative structure, we can see that this is a standardized "brand + new concept + high yield" template, only this time it is grafted onto the story of USDC and tokenized precious metals. At a macro level, this case reflects that when narratives like "real assets on-chain" and "RWA" become industry consensus, they can also be quickly exploited by scammers to package their own stories, lowering the cognitive defense threshold for users.
First, the macro background: Over the past period, discussions around "on-chain assets," "RWA," and "tokenized assets" have been heating up, with traditional assets like gold and silver often placed at the center of the narrative. The planners of CircleMetals clearly seized this climate, fabricating three types of tokens: GLDC, SILC, and CIRM, to stitch together a seemingly reasonable product matrix with the combination of "precious metals + returns + exchanges." There are claims that the fake news mentioned a mechanism linked to COMEX prices, but this point is currently in a "pending verification" state and cannot be used as an established fact.
Second, the sector linkage: When leading assets like USDC are involved in scam narratives, even if prices do not experience severe fluctuations, the brand faces an invisible loss of "increased discernment costs" in the short term—users no longer assume that all content bearing the Circle logo is trustworthy, but need to repeatedly verify sources and channels. In the long run, this will increase the operational and communication costs for the entire tokenized asset sector.
Third, from the on-chain data dimension: Since there are currently no publicly available smart contract addresses, transfer records, or other materials that can be directly cited to prove the flow of funds, we can only honestly say "information is missing" in on-chain analysis. This precisely exposes a risk point: scammers are increasingly inclined to control information transparency in the early stages, trying to shorten the time window from "issuing fake announcements" to "completing fund transfers," making it difficult for trackers to issue early warnings through on-chain data.
Bull-Bear Game
From the "bull" perspective, some argue that while this incident constitutes a short-term shock at the brand level, it also helps leading issuers and compliant projects identify new attack surfaces, thereby forcing them to upgrade their brand defenses and security education toolkits. Supporters believe that as long as Circle continues to respond quickly to fake news and clearly lists "what we did not do" on official channels, the usage logic and credit foundation of USDC itself will not be fundamentally shaken by a single forged press release.
From the "bear" perspective, the opposing side worries about the cumulative erosion effect on the trust structure: when users frequently encounter fake news involving "Circle + some new product," even if no financial losses occur in the short term, it will subconsciously create the impression that "the brand is easily exploited," weakening their trust in any future new product announcements. This "information fatigue" will make it more costly for truly innovative projects to promote themselves.
In terms of radiation effects, this combination of brand forgery + tokenized asset narrative + holiday timing is likely to be replicated by subsequent scammers targeting other leading institutions or popular concepts. Whether it is RWA, payment scenarios, DeFi yield strategies, or AI narratives, as long as there are characteristics of "high professional thresholds that ordinary users find difficult to fully understand," they may be used for superficial packaging. Therefore, the CircleMetals incident is more like a "prototype case," with its importance lying not in the scale of a single loss, but in the replicability of the template.
Outlook
In the foreseeable future, such high-fidelity brand scams will continue to evolve around several key variables: the speed of information disclosure, the brand's self-verification capability, user verification habits, and the degree of refinement of regulatory rules. If project parties can clarify within hours of the emergence of fake news, provide a unified statement on their official website and verified social media, and teach users to use a standardized verification checklist, the marginal harm of such incidents is expected to be compressed within a controllable range.
In the short term, the focus should not be on a specific on-chain transaction or a particular price K-line, but rather on whether USDC-related users experience "announcement fatigue" and "information overload" in the coming weeks. Once users adopt a "doubt first, verify later" attitude towards all new product announcements, truly compliant tokenized asset projects will have to invest more resources to establish differentiated trust in contract audits, on-chain transparency, and legal disclosures.
In the medium to long term, this incident will inevitably be included in discussions on regulation and industry self-discipline: how to more efficiently identify and address behaviors such as brand forgery, false token issuance, and wallet connection inducement within the existing legal framework will determine the marginal returns of such cases, thereby affecting whether scammers continue to use similar templates. For ordinary users, the truly feasible path remains "trust only the original source": any information involving USDC, GLDC, SILC, CIRM, and related exchanges or reward promises needs to be cross-verified among Circle's official website, verified social accounts, and mainstream authoritative media before deciding whether to take further action.
Looking back at the CircleMetals incident, the market needs to adapt to a new normal: brands and narratives themselves are no longer natural safety anchors but need to be continuously "proven" through data, contract addresses, audit reports, and multi-source verification. In such an environment, those who can make "verifiability" a part of their product will have a better chance of standing at a higher position in the next round of trust reconstruction.
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