Circle is the only stock in my portfolio that dropped today. Haven’t looked at it in a while, but it seems like Visa, in collaboration with Coinbase, Stripe, Mastercard, AMEX, BlackRock, Standard Chartered, and other financial institutions, has launched a new stablecoin: OUSD. With this move, Circle’s territory is being eaten away again. On the exchange side, it’s lost its exclusive partnership position with Coinbase (it’s still unclear how Coinbase will balance the relationship between USDC and OUSD). On the traditional finance side, it definitely can’t compete with these big banks. USDC’s only remaining advantages are in DeFi and the chains it plans to build in the future. But the DeFi market is actually shrinking, and as for the chains, they’re currently just vaporware. Circle’s pitch for Agent Payment is still just a pipe dream, and even if they want to break through, it won’t be easy. This is the dilemma faced by native Web3 companies after innovation dries up: trying to align with traditional markets to reach a larger audience. But once traditional companies step in themselves, they quickly gain a resource advantage. That said, USDC still has its first-mover advantage. To hold its ground, begging for acceptance by following the traditional compliance route won’t work. The only hope lies in the next wave of native innovation.