140 Companies Just Launched a USDC Rival — Circle's Stock Cratered 16% in a Day

A major new player has entered the stablecoin market: Open USD (OUSD), a token backed by more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, Alphabet (Google's parent company), and Shopify. An initial rollout happened on June 30, with a full launch targeted for the end of 2026; OUSD debuts on Solana before expanding to other chains.

How OUSD differs from USDC

The key difference is economic: rather than keeping reserve-asset yield for itself, as traditional stablecoin issuers do, OUSD lets partner businesses mint the token for free with no volume caps — while sharing the yield from reserve assets with ecosystem partners.

Market reaction: Circle takes a hit

Shares of Circle (ticker: CRCL), issuer of USDC — a stablecoin with roughly $73.4 billion in circulation — fell about 16% intraday to around $63. The drop reflects investor concern that a consortium of this size and diversity — spanning payments companies, asset managers, and tech giants — could meaningfully erode USDC's market position.

What this means in practice

OUSD's backer list isn't crypto-native companies — it's established fintech and tech giants, which makes the threat to incumbent stablecoin issuers more structural than a typical new competitor. If the free-minting, yield-sharing model works, it could reshape the economics of the entire stablecoin market — not just for Circle, but for Tether and others too.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.