Yesterday CRCL dropped nearly 18% in a single day, and the first reaction from many was that with over 140 institutions jointly launching OUSD, USDC is finished.

I don’t think there’s any need for such panic. The biggest change with OUSD isn’t the technology—it’s that the game has changed. In the past, stablecoin profits mainly went to the issuer; now it’s banks, payment companies, and channels sharing the pie. In simple terms, stablecoins have entered a channel war—whoever brings in more partners will scale faster. But that doesn’t mean USDC is gone the moment OUSD launches.

Don’t forget USDC has been around for nearly a decade. What’s really valuable isn’t how much has been issued, but that it’s already embedded deep into the entire crypto ecosystem. Exchanges, DeFi, wallets, RWA—USDC is the default in many places. Network effects aren’t something you can replicate by getting a hundred-plus companies to hold a launch event.

So I think the sharp drop in CRCL is less about OUSD being too strong and more about the market starting to reprice Circle. Rate cuts affect interest income, channel revenue sharing keeps rising, and competitors keep piling up. These concerns were already there; OUSD just triggered all that sentiment at once.

In the future, the stablecoin market won’t have just one winner. The pie is still growing, and the current fight is over who gets a bigger slice later. USDC won’t dominate alone, but OUSD can’t rewrite the landscape overnight either.

What I’m actually more focused on now are three other questions: Can USDC’s circulating supply keep growing? Can Circle find new growth drivers beyond interest income? And can the partnerships with core channels like Coinbase remain stable?

If all three questions have answers, then this crash is more of an emotional release; if not, it’s perfectly normal for the market to reprice it. My view hasn’t changed—don’t overestimate OUSD, and don’t underestimate Circle.

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