《 OUSD has emerged, is the Circle moat still there? How to translate Dozens of financial companies, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, etc., are promoting a new stablecoin called OUSD. As soon as the news came out, CRCL's stock price fell first. If traditional finance, payment networks, and exchanges all start to jointly issue stablecoins, how much of USDC's moat is left? The sharp drop in CRCL's stock price is essentially a concentrated release of this concern. So the question arises: Is Circle an overvalued "spread bank" or a stablecoin infrastructure leader that has been mistakenly killed by the market? Please take a look at the Circle debate between long and short positions, and the main viewpoints of the debaters from both sides Watch more Circle/stablecoin cakes will grow bigger Yibian Daewoo @ BTCDayu I XHunt ranked 657 Daewoo Neutral is optimistic and believes that CRCL is like early Tesla, and stablecoin compliance is like an open source trend. The long-term market will grow, but the process will not be smooth sailing. He believes that USDC remains the most important player in the stablecoin compliance track, but moats are not always safe and will continue to face three types of challenges in the future: competition from new stablecoins, Coinbase revenue sharing pressure, and how much market compliance B-end USDC can capture. Core judgment: CRCL is worth observing and paying long-term attention to, but cannot be grasped solely by faith. What truly determines the valuation is the future ecosystem of C-end, trading scenarios, and predictive markets. Will USDC, USDT, or other stablecoins be chosen. Second Debate on Encryption Wei Tuo @ thecryptoskanda I XHunt Ranking 1008 Encryption Wei Tuo said: Based on experience, when seven or ten ministries issue documents, it may sound like thunder and rain, but when a company such as the Ministry of Public Security or the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee issues a document, it is a big deal. Core judgment: The more collaborations there are, the fewer people are responsible. The same goes for red headed files and stablecoins. Three Debates Blue Fox (@ lanhubiji) XHunt Ranking 1506 It is believed that OUSD will not end the stablecoin war, nor will it completely win the stablecoin market, but it can indeed grab a piece of the cake. Although OUSD has over 140 companies behind it, including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, Stripe, Shopify, Google, etc., it naturally has payment channels, merchant networks, banking partnerships, and institutional resources, providing opportunities to quickly enter into enterprise payment, settlement, cross-border remittance, RWA, and other scenarios. Core viewpoint: OUSD will not easily replace USDT/USDC. USDT still has the strongest liquidity and trading depth, and USDC has also taken the lead in compliance, with good transparency and institutional adoption. OUSD will bring pressure to Circle, but it does not mean the end of USDC. Four Debates: The Honest Mr. Mai @ Michael_Liu93 I XHunt Ranked 1708 Mr. Mai believes that the market is overly concerned about Circle being replaced by traditional financial giants. Stablecoins are not just about issuing a single coin, but require channels, user mindset, trading scenarios, and long-term liquidity accumulation. In the past, many major platforms have tried to stabilize the currency: BUSD/FDUSD/TUSD of Coin Safety, USDH of Hyperliquid, HUSD of Huobi, USDK of OKX, GUSD of Gemini, USDG of Kraken, USDD of Tron, and finally, USDT and USDC are still the real ones. Core judgment: Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase are working together on stablecoins not to eliminate USDC, but to jointly expand the market for stablecoin payments and consumer grade crypto. Opening the entrance to traditional finance may actually benefit USDC and USDT. Wu Fan @ wufantouzi I XHunt Ranking 2687 I believe that what the market is truly questioning is not the stablecoin track, but the CRCL itself. But currently, USDC is still the absolute leader in the compliant stablecoin market. Although there are many competitors, the data has not yet proven that they can truly challenge USDC. Core judgment: It is believed that the valuation of CRCL should not be based on ordinary financial stocks, but should be priced based on the long-term space of the stablecoin track. Previously, based on a market share of 24%, it was not assumed that USDC would dominate 100% of the market. For new stablecoins such as USDG, he believes that the short-term volume is greater than the actual threat: the issuance of USDG is about $3 billion, and its market share is less than 5% of USDC. Every GPU manufacturer wants to challenge Nvidia, but the advantage of being a leader is not just announced. Bearish on Circle/stablecoin without moat Phyrex (@ PhyrexNi) XHunt ranked 774 It is believed that USDC will still have a large market, especially in the field of compliant cryptocurrency trading in the United States, but Circle's problem is that it has been telling the USDC payment narrative for many years and has truly encountered challenges from banks and payment giants. The real difficulty with stablecoins is not issuance, but acceptance. Banks have corporate accounts, cross-border settlements, payment networks, institutional clients, and USD deposit and withdrawal channels. If banks issue their own stablecoins, they are naturally more suitable for corporate payments, institutional settlements, and cross-border scenarios. Core viewpoint: The starting point of OUSD is not simply cryptocurrency trading, but towards payment and acceptance. What Circle can do, Open USD can also do. What Circle cannot do temporarily, Open USD may actually achieve through banks and payment networks. Second Debate Colin Wu @ colinwu I XHunt Ranking 971 It is believed that whether it is the sharp decline in CRCL stock price or the joint efforts of hundreds of authoritative institutions to develop stablecoins, it indicates that the stablecoin market will be reshaped by regulation and traditional finance in the long run. Core viewpoint: Like other products in the cryptocurrency industry, stablecoins essentially satisfy the need to "evade regulation". But as the scale expands, stablecoins will inevitably be standardized, and demand may actually decrease. Once fully compliant, the difference between stablecoins and traditional digital dollars will not be as significant. Stablecoins are centralized US dollar mapped currencies, not the so-called "GPT moment" in the cryptocurrency industry. The future will truly determine the pattern of stablecoins not only in terms of issuance volume, but also in terms of regulation, application scenarios, and the ecosystem within the industry. San Bian Xu Surfing @ Cyrilxuq I XHunt Ranking 1983 It is believed that stablecoins themselves do not have a strong moat, and all Web2 banks, payment companies, Visa, Mastercard can do so. Core viewpoint: The true core technology of stablecoins lies not in coin issuance, but in card organizations and clearing networks. If Visa can reduce the cost of settlement banks from 1.5% to 0.1% in the future and directly connect issuing banks, merchants, on chain KYC, and payment networks, then users can directly swipe their issued stablecoins on POS machines. Four Debates Xiaoyao XTony @ xtony1314 I XHunt Ranking 3666 It is nonsense to think that CRCL is analogized to Visa/Mastercard. Visa earns service fees for payment channels, while Circle issues stable currency. In essence, it earns money by the interest rate difference between the U.S. dollar and treasury bond. The two business models are completely different. Core point: Users using USDC do not need to pay additional transaction fees to Circle, so it is difficult for CRCL to sustain commission like Visa. CRCL's core income comes from treasury bond bond interest, but this part of income is not only affected by the interest rate cycle, but also shared with Coinbase. The profit model is not sexy. He also believes that the real ones like Visa are public chains such as ETH, Tron, Solana, which charge "tolls", rather than stablecoin issuers. Wu Bian Jiang Zhuoer @ Jiangzhuoer2 I XHunt Ranking 5213 As early as the end of 2025, they were not optimistic about CRCL and believed that Circle was essentially more like a "spread eating bank" rather than a high growth technology stock. Core view: CRCL's main profit comes from the interest income of treasury bond, but the interest rate cut in the future will compress the interest margin; At the same time, it is necessary to distribute a large amount of profits to Coinbase, resulting in unstable profitability. He also believes that Circle's biggest risk is not competition, but policy. The stable currency relies on the interest income of treasury bond, but this model is "relying on policy to eat the interest margin" in the blockchain market. Once the regulation prohibits or restricts the distribution of related income, the profit logic may be directly destroyed. Summary of viewpoints from both parties According to multiple opinions: At present, new stablecoins like OUSD seem more lively, but there is no data to prove that they can truly challenge USDC. Stablecoins cannot be created by anyone, the core lies in channels, liquidity, user mindset, and transaction scenarios. The fate of traditional financial giants may not necessarily be to eliminate Circle, but rather to expand the cake of stablecoin payments and consumer grade crypto. The bearish side believes that: The moat of Circle is not as deep as imagined. The threshold for issuing stablecoins is not high, and the truly valuable ones are the payment clearing network and financial channels, which are precisely controlled by Visa, Mastercard, banks, and traditional financial institutions. At the same time, CRCL mainly earns money from treasury bond interest. Once interest rate cuts, sharing pressure increases, or regulatory restrictions on income distribution, the valuation logic will be repriced.