In 2016, Circle's Series D round had already reached 500 million. The context at that time was likely the FinTech wave between China and the US (with China being the familiar P2P). It received a relatively high valuation.

Now with a market value of 50 billion, even without accounting for dilution of shares and vesting, the investment institutions from back then actually did not outperform BTC during the same period.

It's so difficult.