Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001193125-25-126208
Chunk: 262

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 262
---
 Compensation Committee, our compensation consultant, and our management team each play a role in evaluating and mitigating potential risks associated with our compensation program, practices, and policies. Our Compensation Committee, with input and support from our compensation consultant and management, has performed a compensation risk assessment. In particular, this assessment considered compensation program attributes that help to mitigate risk, including, for example:

| • |     | the mix of cash and equity compensation; |

| • |     | a balance of short- and long-term incentive plan designs with multiple performance measures that emphasize top- and bottom-line performance; and |

| • |     | the oversight of an independent Compensation Committee. |

Based on this assessment, our Compensation Committee concluded that our compensation policies and practices, taken as a whole, are not reasonably likely to have a material adverse effect on Circle. Tax and accounting considerations Deductibility of executive compensation Code Section 162(m), as amended by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, generally imposes a $1 million cap on the federal income tax deduction for compensation paid to our “covered employees” during any fiscal year. While the Compensation Committee considers the deductibility of awards as one factor in determining executive compensation, the Compensation Committee also looks at other factors in making its decisions, and, in the exercise of its business judgment and in accordance with its compensation philosophy, the Compensation Committee retains the flexibility to award compensation even if the compensation is not deductible by us for tax purposes, and to modify compensation that was initially intended to be tax deductible if it determines such modifications are consistent with our business needs. Accounting for stock-based compensation The Compensation Committee takes accounting considerations into account in designing compensation plans and arrangements for our NEOs and other employees. We follow the Financial Accounting Standard Board’s Accounting Standards Codification Topic 718 (FASB ASC Topic 718) for our stock-based compensation awards. FASB ASC Topic 718 requires us to measure the compensation expense for all share-based payment awards based on the grant date “fair value” of these awards. 183

Summary compensation table The following table sets forth information concerning the compensation paid to our named executive officers during our fiscal years ended December 31, 2024, 2023, and 2022.

| Name and principal                      
 position                                |     | Year |      |    |     | Salary($) |         |     | Bonus 
 ($)   |         |    |     | Stock  
 awards 
 ($)(1) |            |     | Option 
 awards 
 ($)(2) |            |     |