Circle CEO Rebuts OUSD Pitch, Defends USDC's Network Effects After Stock Slide

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire published a lengthy rebuttal on X on July 1 to the pitch behind OUSD, the stablecoin launched by the Open Standard consortium, arguing that USDC's advantages in distribution, liquidity and regulatory licensing are not easily replicated.

"We've had lots of questions from our investor community looking for thoughts on OUSD, and so I thought I'd share my direct views here," he wrote, describing stablecoin networks as "platform and network effect businesses that are established over a long period of time" and built on three layers: developer and application integrations, liquidity depth, and regulatory licensing accumulated over years, including USDC's approvals in the European Union and Japan.

Open Standard, the independent company formed to govern Open USD, unveiled the token on June 30. According to Open Standard's announcement, OUSD rests on three design principles: partner businesses can mint and redeem the token without fees or volume caps; partners receive nearly all reserve earnings after a management fee; and the token is governed collectively by a board of partner companies rather than a single issuer.

Reserves are described as maintained at financial institutions in compliance with U.S. regulatory requirements, though specific custodians and attestation practices had not been disclosed as of launch, as The Defiant reported.

Zach Abrams, Open Standard's founding CEO and a co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2025, said in the announcement: "Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that's open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests."

Stripe president of technology and business Will Gaybrick said Open USD will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe.

The partner list spans more than 140 companies, including payment networks Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover; financial institutions BlackRock, BNY and Standard Chartered; technology firms Google and Shopify; and crypto platforms Coinbase, Ripple and Solana, according to Open Standard's site. Circle, Tether and PayPal are not among the backers.

Allaire's Point-by-Point Rebuttal

Allaire addressed three specific arguments made for OUSD. On fee-free minting and redemption, he said Circle already addresses large-partner economics through contractual arrangements rather than a blanket policy, and questioned whether removing fees entirely is sustainable market-wide.

On revenue sharing, he argued that distributing nearly all reserve income to partners risks starving the infrastructure needed to run a global stablecoin network — "giving away all income is a recipe for starving your infrastructure, systematically underinvesting and ensuring that your platform will remain limited in scope" — noting Circle already shares the majority of its income with distribution partners.

On consortium governance, Allaire pointed to Circle's own history — it co-founded the Centre Consortium with Coinbase before consolidating USDC issuance under Circle alone — and said the track record of similar multi-company products reaching scale "is absolutely dismal," citing coordination problems and slow decision-making among large corporate partners.

On usage, Allaire cited data he attributed to Artemis showing USDC processed roughly $30 trillion in onchain transactions in the first quarter of 2026, about 80% of dollar-stablecoin transaction volume, with USDT accounting for most of the rest and all other stablecoins combined under 0.5%.

On Coinbase specifically — notable because Coinbase is both a USDC revenue-sharing partner and an OUSD backer — Allaire wrote that Circle's "stablecoin partnership with Coinbase remains as strong as ever."

The Coinbase Economics at Stake

Circle's own SEC filing spells out why the Coinbase relationship draws scrutiny: Coinbase earns 100% of interest income on USDC held within its own products, and 50% of the residual reserve income on USDC held elsewhere — a split that moves with how much USDC sits on Coinbase's platform, which Circle's filing put at 20% of total supply in 2024. That mechanism traces back to the actual Circle-Coinbase Collaboration Agreement, filed as an exhibit to Coinbase's 10-K, which defines Coinbase's cut through an "Issuer Retention" and "Residual Payment Base" formula and sets an initial three-year term running from the agreement's August 18, 2023 effective date — putting it up for renewal around August 18, 2026, with automatic three-year renewals contingent on Coinbase meeting the product and reseller thresholds in Section 3.2.

Bernstein analysts wrote in a research note that the arrangement accounts for close to 20% of Coinbase's total revenue, flagging Coinbase's participation in the 140-company OUSD consortium as something that "has raised eyebrows" given how much the exchange earns from USDC.

Market Reaction

Circle's stock fell more than 17% on June 30 to close at $62.63, its weakest level in four months and down 55% from mid-May. CRCL had priced its IPO at $31 per share in June 2025 and reached an intraday all-time high of $298.99 (closing high of $263.45) on June 23, 2025, before its prolonged decline. As of DefiLlama, USDC's market capitalization stood at $73.9 billion against USDT's $184.9 billion, with total stablecoin market capitalization at $313.2 billion.

Circle reported first-quarter 2026 revenue and reserve income of $694 million, up 20% year-over-year, with reserve income of $653 million making up 94% of total revenue, according to Circle's Q1 2026 results.

Wall Street's initial read was skeptical of the selloff's magnitude. Bernstein reaffirmed an "Outperform" rating and $190 price target, citing Visa onchain data showing USDC processed $5.3 trillion in the first half of 2026 alone. William Blair kept its own Outperform rating, calling OUSD "a solution searching for a problem" and telling clients the selloff was a buying opportunity

Analysts pointed to Paxos's Global Dollar Network (USDG) — a similar consortium-backed, revenue-sharing stablecoin launched in 2024 — which has grown to only about $3 billion in supply, as a precedent for how new entrants have struggled against USDC and USDT.

Allaire closed his thread by saying Circle continues to work with OUSD's founding members as USDC customers and partners, and that Circle welcomes continued competition in the stablecoin market.