Circle president Heath Tarbert went on record defending USDC network effects on 14 July, hours after the stablecoin issuer’s stock had shed more than three-quarters of its post-IPO value and a 140-plus member consortium launched a direct rival.
CRCL listed in May 2025, with CNBC reporting Circle targeted a raise of approximately $624 million at a valuation of around $6 billion. Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management indicated interest in purchasing up to $150 million of shares. The stock ran to near $260 post-debut before retreating to the low $60 range.
Speaking to FOX Business, Tarbert said Circle is ‘playing the long game’ and that the stock should ‘take care of itself’ if the company delivers on its broader infrastructure mission. He pointed to roughly $73 billion in USDC in circulation across 34 blockchains as a moat that would be ‘incredibly hard to replicate.’
Open USD Consortium Reframes the Distribution Game
The backdrop to Tarbert’s comments is Open Standard, the independent company that announced Open USD (OUSD) on 30 June 2026. Founding CEO Zach Abrams, previously CEO of Bridge before Stripe acquired it, leads the operation. Open Standard’s board is composed of its partners.
The backing roster runs well beyond the headline names. Alongside Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, and Coinbase, the consortium includes American Express, Discover, Standard Chartered, BBVA, Mizuho, Google, Samsung, Shopify, Aave, Solana Labs, and Ripple, among others. Partners can mint and redeem OUSD without fees and receive reserve earnings after a management charge. Stripe is set to make OUSD the base stablecoin for its entire commerce ecosystem, with native launch planned across Solana, Base, Polygon, Stellar, and Ripple later in 2026.
CRCL dropped 17.5% to $62.63 after OUSD’s entry and Circle’s removal from several Russell Growth indexes. Mizuho cut its price target to $50, arguing that OUSD’s revenue-sharing structure could compress Circle’s margins and raise distribution costs.
The concern is structural. CNBC reported that Coinbase already holds a 50% revenue-sharing agreement with Circle and captures 100% of the interest earned by USDC products on its own platform. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has described making USDC the world’s leading stablecoin as a stretch goal, which means the same distribution partner profiting most from USDC growth is now also a founding member of the OUSD consortium.
JPMorgan separately lowered earnings forecasts for both Circle and Coinbase after a new revenue-sharing agreement tied to USDC balances on Hyperliquid, noting that stronger adoption could arrive with lower retained reserve income.
USDC Network Effects Sit Inside a Broadening Regulatory Moat
While the stock has been under pressure, Circle has been accumulating regulatory surface area. The company filed for an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) national trust bank charter on 30 June 2025, received conditional approval on 12 December 2025, one of five the OCC granted that day, joining approximately 60 other nationally supervised trust banks, and received final approval on 10 July 2026.
Per Circle’s official press release, the new entity will be chartered as First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. and operate under the trade name Circle National Trust. Initial services cover digital asset custody; USDC reserve management is planned as a future addition. Federal supervision sits at the OCC level from day one.
Circle’s licence stack already spans the New York BitLicense (2015, the first issued), EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) compliance (2024, first global stablecoin issuer), Abu Dhabi Global Market authorisation (2025), and licences in the UK, Singapore, and Bermuda.
The charter push is not uniquely Circle’s. Finance X Magazine reports that the GENIUS Act, enacted 18 July 2025, gave national trust banks a defined route to issue payment stablecoins for the first time, and that roughly eleven firms filed for or received OCC trust charters in an 83-day window shortly after, including Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Stripe’s Bridge, and Morgan Stanley.
Tarbert’s framing holds that USDC’s existing circulation, 34-chain distribution, and a federally supervised trust bank structure provide competitive durability that a consortium of payment companies cannot assemble overnight. Whether the market agrees will show in how reserve income holds up once OUSD moves from announced to live.
