The recent news of OpenUSD's official announcement caused Circle's stock price to plummet, shaking many people's confidence in investing in Circle. However, I personally believe that the hype around this news is more bearish than the actual negative impact.

If Circle's only moat is being the issuer of USDC, then all companies in the stablecoin business have no future, and there is no point in investing in this track.
Because as the regulatory framework becomes clearer, the barriers to issuing compliant stablecoins are getting lower. In the future, any bank, payment company, or exchange could issue their own coins, and stablecoin issuance itself will become increasingly commoditized.
But Circle's true long-term value lies in the underlying financial infrastructure for stablecoin payments, the network effect of USDC, and the endorsement of institutional-level clients. These are things that OpenUSD or any other new stablecoin cannot catch up with in the short term.
Another perspective is that stablecoin payments are not a zero-sum game. If OpenUSD can encourage more people and businesses to adopt stablecoins, the total addressable market (TAM) for the entire stablecoin industry will certainly expand, which is good for Circle in the long run.
OpenUSD is a short-term negative, but I am not very worried about the medium to long term. The biggest issue right now is that the Clarity bill has not been passed yet, and also when Bitcoin's price will bottom out. These two factors are key to Circle's stock price.
When Bitcoin bottoms out, Circle's stock price will likely bottom out as well; the two are strongly correlated.