Bernstein将Circle目标价自190美元调整至140美元，判定Open USD威胁将减弱
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Circle's stock price remains promising despite a sharp drop; Bernstein predicts it will more than triple.
PANews reported on July 1st that, according to The Block, Bernstein reiterated its "Outperform" rating on Circle and maintained its price target of $190, implying an upside of approximately 203% from the current share price. This comes after Circle's parent company, CRCL, saw its share price fall 17.5% in a single day following the launch of its new stablecoin, Open USD (OUSD). OUSD is operated by the independent company Open Standard, partnering with over 140 institutions including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase. Minting and redemption are free, and reserve revenue is shared among partners.
Possibly influenced by news of competition from OpenUSD, CRCL fell nearly 9% intraday.
According to Odaily Odaily, Circle (CRCL) fell below $70 during trading, currently trading at $69.53, a drop of 8.59% on the day, possibly influenced by news that multiple institutions, including Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard, have launched the stablecoin Open USD. Odaily Note: Open USD will be operated by an independent company, Open Standard. Open Standard's board of directors consists of Open USD's partners to ensure that decisions are made in the collective interest, not the interest of a single entity. Open USD's partners include over 140 companies such as Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Fiserv, Adyen, Cloudflare, Corpay, and Jack Henry.
Jefferies warns investors against buy the dips Circle shares as they fall, citing new competitive pressure from Open USD.
PANews reported on July 2nd that, according to CoinDesk, the formation of the Open USD stablecoin alliance has sparked market concerns about competitive pressure on Circle. Circle's stock price plummeted 17% on Tuesday but rebounded 5% on Wednesday. Analysts at investment bank Jefferies believe Circle's approximately 25% stablecoin market share is under pressure and advise investors against buy the dips. They cite the new alliance's support from over 140 companies, its significant distribution network advantage, and the inclusion of Circle's largest distribution partner, Coinbase. Their business agreement is reportedly set to be renewed in August, potentially further impacting USDC's growth potential. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire responded that stablecoins are a network business built over many years, and USDC's integration scale, liquidity, and regulatory approvals are difficult to replicate quickly.
Circle CEO Responds to Competition Concerns Regarding OUSD: Stablecoins are Winner-Take-All! USDC's Decade-Long Network Effect Creates a Triple Moat
According to Mars Finance, on July 1st, Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire responded to investors' questions regarding the competition from the emerging stablecoin OUSD, emphasizing that stablecoins are a business built on long-term platform and network effects, with a significant winner-takes-all characteristic. USDC's network strength stems from three barriers: First, the network effect of developer and application integration: thousands of services have integrated USDC, each integration amplifies network utility, forming a positive flywheel of developer preference and user stickiness; Second, the liquidity network effect: USDC is currently the third most liquid digital asset globally, alongside BTC and USDT, while other USD stablecoins have only one-tenth of its liquidity and are highly concentrated on promotional accounts on a single trading platform. USDC's liquidity is dispersed across dozens of exchanges, and it took nearly a decade to build this global liquidity foundation; Third, deep integration of policy and regulation: USDC is the only large-scale global stablecoin simultaneously covering Europe and Japan, and Circle continuously invests in the global banking system, reserve management, and near-24/7 liquidity infrastructure. Artemis data shows that USDC processed nearly $30 trillion in on-chain transactions in Q1 2026, accounting for 80% of all USD stablecoin transactions. Allaire addressed OUSD's core selling points point by point: First, while free minting and redemption are theoretically attractive, the market reality is that stablecoins with strong redemption capabilities, high liquidity, and zero fees naturally become exit channels for competitors. Circle addresses this issue through contractual mechanisms rather than general fee waivers. Second, while "everyone sharing the profits" sounds appealing, Circle has already distributed most of its revenue to distribution partners, while retaining sufficient revenue to continuously invest in the infrastructure that makes USDC a global utility—"distributing all revenue will only starve the infrastructure." Third, while the consortium governance model is attractive, its history of scaling and product agility is extremely poor. Large corporations often suffer from poor coordination, inconsistent incentives, and self-interest that stifles consortium operational investment. Circle attempted a similar model in the early days of USDC, encountering immense challenges even on a small scale; small, focused strategic partnerships and independently driven business partnerships almost always prevailed. Allaire also explicitly stated that Circle's stablecoin partnership with Coinbase remains strong, with both parties seeing significant opportunities to expand the USDC network. He expressed optimism about the overall growth of the stablecoin ecosystem, welcomed OUSD, and revealed that Circle is continuously expanding its partnerships with dozens of other stablecoin issuers through platforms such as Arc, CCTP, CPN, StableFX, and Agent Stack, even though some of these partners compete with Circle in other areas of their business. Last night, Open Standard announced the launch of OpenUSD, a new stablecoin backed by over 140 companies including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase. According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Circle's stock price fell over 16% on Tuesday as a result, but has since rebounded briefly to a 1.55% gain in pre-market trading.
ARK Invest researchers commented on OpenUSD: Essentially similar to early DAOs, the alliance of competitors faces multiple obstacles.
According to Mars Finance, Lorenzo Valente, Research Director at ARK Invest, commented on the OpenUSD stablecoin project jointly launched by multiple institutions. He stated that despite the strength of the participants (including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, etc.), OpenUSD faces several major obstacles: First, liquidity and cold start issues; USDC and USDT have already formed a strong network effect, dominating exchanges, payment processors, and brokers, making it difficult for new stablecoins to gain trading pairs and large-scale holding intentions. Second, the decision-making speed of an alliance of 500 competitors will be extremely slow, lacking successful precedents, and conflicts of interest will be difficult to coordinate. Third, regulatory and antitrust risks are extremely high; joint issuance of currency by large banks and card networks is likely to become a regulatory focus. Fourth, the revenue-sharing model results in insufficient capital retention for issuers, making it difficult to cover high operating and promotional expenses. Fifth, the actual commitments of partners are limited, mostly expressions of intent (LOI), with parties still supporting competitors and favoring multiple hedging rather than exclusive binding. Valente concluded that OpenUSD is essentially similar to a "multiple competing DAOs," making rapid execution and decision-making difficult, and ultimately potentially repeating the mistakes of early DAO projects that suffered from governance failures and ineffective implementation. Affected by the OpenUSD plan, Circle's US stock price plummeted by over 17% in a single day, prompting ARK Invest to take advantage of the situation and buy in.
OpenUSD Consortium accused of listing stablecoin partners such as Samsung without their consent.
According to Odaily Odaily, Open Standard, the consortium behind Open USD, is accused of listing companies such as Samsung Electronics as backers of the OUSD stablecoin project without their consent. Tony Chung, head of BD at Blockmedia, said that Samsung Electronics stated there had been no formal discussions and it was unclear what role they would play in the project. Shinhan, Dunamu, and K Bank stated that Open Standard had inquired about their interest in participating, to which they only indicated they would "consider," before discovering that their names had already been listed as members of the consortium. Tether consultant Gabor Gurbacs stated that some of the listed partners claimed they never signed or agreed to anything. Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire posted that "integrity is important." OUSD is expected to launch later this year. (Bitcoin.com News).