Circle (CRCL) shares dropped 18% on Tuesday after news broke that Open USD — a competing stablecoin backed by Coinbase, Visa, and Mastercard — is launching later this year. But analysts at Clear Street say the selloff was too much.
“Without any solid evidence that OUSD can get real traction, the selloff looks overdone,” they wrote Wednesday.
Sure, the narrative threat could linger. But Circle’s USDC has survived other challengers before. Clear Street points out USDG (Global Dollar Network’s stablecoin) never gained meaningful market share. OUSD might end up the same way.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire addressed the launch directly at investor request. His take: scale matters. USDC has a $73 billion market cap — second only to Tether’s $184 billion. Strong stablecoin networks need deep liquidity, broad app integration, and regulatory relationships built over years. OUSD starts with none of that.
“All of these investments by Circle and our global ecosystem of thousands of partners have delivered the world’s most trusted digital dollar infrastructure,” Allaire posted on X. His firm does “not intend to slow down.”
CRCL bounced back 3% on Friday to around $64.55. Still more than 75% off its 52-week high of $262.97. Clear Street has a 12-month price target of $157 — about 140% above current levels.
