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Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has pushed back against the threat from Open USD, arguing that USDC’s advantage comes from liquidity, integrations and regulatory reach built over years.
His response follows the June 30 launch of Open Standard, a 140-member stablecoin group that plans to issue OUSD later this year and share reserve earnings with participating businesses.
Allaire Says Stablecoins Reward Network Scale
Allaire said stablecoins behave more like internet platform networks than simple payment tokens. His argument is that liquidity, developer integrations, exchange listings, wallets, payment routes and regulatory access compound over time.
Once a stablecoin is deeply embedded, new entrants still need liquidity, integrations and transaction flow to compete with it.
Circle has spent years building USDC into exchanges, wallets, DeFi protocols, payment companies and institutional platforms. Allaire also pointed to Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol and Gateway as parts of the token’s moat.
OUSD Challenges Issuer Reserve Income
Open Standard is challenging one of the most profitable parts of the stablecoin business. The group says OUSD will let businesses mint and redeem at no cost and without volume limits. Reserve earnings would be shared with partners after a management fee, rather than kept mainly by one issuer.
That model is meant to attract payment companies, exchanges, banks, merchants and fintech platforms that can distribute a stablecoin while also receiving part of the income generated by its backing assets.
Visa, Coinbase and Stripe Back Network
The Open Standard group includes major names across payments, banking, technology and crypto. Participants include Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Stripe, BlackRock, Google and Ripple, alongside other finance, technology and digital asset firms.
Open Standard says OUSD is designed for payments, settlement, trading, merchant flows, remittances, platforms, marketplaces and agentic commerce. The partner list gives the project possible distribution across card networks, payment processors, exchanges, wallets and merchant platforms once the stablecoin goes live.
Coinbase Role Tests USDC Partnership
Coinbase’s place in the OUSD group drew attention because the exchange has long been one of USDC’s key distribution partners. Allaire rejected the idea that Coinbase’s participation means a break with Circle.
He said the USDC partnership remains strong and that both companies still see room to expand the network.
That matters because Coinbase has helped make USDC a default dollar token across retail trading, institutional accounts and onchain activity. If Coinbase gives OUSD real placement later, the new token could test how deep that loyalty runs.
OUSD Still Needs Live Payment Flows
OUSD is not live yet, so its first test will be usage rather than partner count. The launch gives businesses a financial reason to support a new stablecoin, but it still has to build liquidity, listings, compliance coverage and repeat payment flows.
For Circle, the defense is not only brand recognition. USDC’s moat is the number of places where users can already hold, move, borrow, trade and settle with the token.
Stablecoin competition is now moving beyond issuance into distribution, reserve economics and the payment networks that decide which tokens get used at scale.
