Circle's stock just learned what 140 friends feel like 📉

Shares of USDC issuer Circle (CRCL) fell 18% on Tuesday after a consortium of more than 140 companies, including Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and BlackRock, announced plans to launch a competing stablecoin called Open USD (OUSD), sending the stock to $63.99 per Yahoo Finance and marking its largest single-day decline since March, when a draft proposal to ban stablecoin yield on idle balances drove a 20% drop. By Wednesday, CRCL had recovered about 5%, changing hands near $64.55, though the shares remain down more than 18% over six months and more than 75% off their 52-week high of $262.97.

Open USD was unveiled by newly formed independent operator Open Standard, led by founding CEO Zach Abrams, who previously founded the Stripe-acquired stablecoin firm Bridge. The consortium said businesses will be able to mint and redeem OUSD for free with no volume caps, that reserve earnings will be shared among partners minus a management fee, and that governance will sit with a board drawn from participating companies rather than a single corporate parent. "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," Abrams said in a statement. BlackRock's Samara Cohen called the project "a constructive step toward giving businesses more choice," while BNY projected the broader stablecoin market could swell to $1.5 trillion by 2030. Open USD is expected to go live later this year.

Wall Street split on the move. Jefferies told clients "Buy the dip? We wouldn't," warning that "CRCL headwinds are unlikely to ease" as banks, payment firms and fintechs increasingly launch their own stablecoins, and flagging that Circle derives about 95% of its revenue from interest earned on USDC reserves while relying on Coinbase as its largest distribution partner under a commercial agreement reportedly up for renewal in August. Clear Street took the opposite view, calling the sell-off "overdone" and writing that "without any solid evidence that OUSD can get real traction, the selloff looks overdone," adding that OUSD "is not dissimilar to USDG (Global Dollar Network stablecoin) which hasn't gained meaningful market shares." Clear Street set a 12-month price target of $157, roughly 140% above Wednesday's trading price, while the broader analyst consensus target stands at $120, implying about 91% upside.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire pushed back on the competitive threat, posting on X that strong stablecoin networks require a wide range of services and applications, strong liquidity and "deep integration with the policy and regulatory environment," and adding that "all of these investments by Circle and our global ecosystem of thousands of partners have delivered the net result of providing the world's most trusted and available digital dollar infrastructure" and that the firm does "not intend to slow down." ARK Invest's Lorenzo Valente also questioned whether a large consortium can coordinate effectively and withstand regulatory pressure. VanEck's Matthew Sigel and Reciprocal Ventures' Sam Ruskin struck a more cautious tone, with Ruskin saying "whatever way you cut it, this seems bearish for Circle."

The broader stablecoin market totals roughly $300 billion, with Tether's USDT holding a $184 billion market cap and Circle's USDC at more than $73 billion, the second-largest stablecoin and fifth-largest crypto token overall; USDC's share of the market rose from 19% to 25% following passage of the GENIUS Act in 2025 before easing to 24% in 2026, while USDT's share slipped from 62% to 59% over the same period. Bitcoin, separately, bounced off its lowest level in nearly two years on Wednesday as soft U.S. economic data and noncommittal remarks from the Federal Reserve chair gave respite to a battered market.