Circle CEO said the company welcomes increased competition as stablecoin adoption accelerates.
Shares of Circle (CRCL) fell about 13% on Tuesday after Open USD, a new stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies, including BlackRock, Google, Visa and Coinbase, was unveiled.
The stock fell to about $65, its lowest level in four months, before recovering, per Yahoo Finance.
Developed by Open Standard and led by Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, the initiative is the latest effort by major financial and technology firms to build a shared stablecoin infrastructure.
The launch comes as stablecoins increasingly power global payments, merchant settlement and corporate treasury operations. Open USD seeks to differentiate itself through fee-free minting and redemption, distribution of most reserve income to ecosystem participants and governance by an independent, partner-led organization instead of a centralized issuer.
The approach directly targets one of Circle’s key revenue streams and mirrors the incentive structures used by Paxos’ Global Dollar Network.
Responding to the launch of Open USD, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire downplayed the competitive threat, saying the stablecoin market is large enough to support continued innovation.
He said Circle will continue investing in USDC’s institutional network, expanding partnerships across banking, payments and capital markets while growing its stablecoin infrastructure.
“USDC remains the most trusted, widely adopted, institutional-ready stablecoin in the world, and we count thousands of institutions as partners in our ecosystem across nearly every major sector,” Allaire stated. “We continue to invest in growing that ecosystem by building on more networks, bringing more interoperability, and integrating it with banks, payments companies, capital markets firms, enterprises and others globally while expanding how partners can become economic stakeholders in the growth and success of the USDC network.”
