[Circle's Stock Drops Over 16% After Open USD Launch, Analysts Call the Sell-Off Overreaction] BlockBeats News, July 1: Circle's stock fell over 16% on Tuesday following the announcement by Open Standard of the launch of Open USD, a new stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase. Investors are assessing the potential competitive threat to USDC. William Blair analysts stated that the sell-off was an overreaction and reiterated their 'Outperform' rating on Circle, suggesting that investors should view the decline as a buying opportunity. Analysts Andrew Jeffrey and Adib Choudhury noted that competition in the stablecoin market is 'inevitable' and ultimately validates the industry's potential. They believe concerns about competition are exaggerated and highlighted USDC's approximately $74 billion market cap, deep liquidity, and Circle's stablecoin payment infrastructure, such as its payment network, as factors keeping Circle in a favorable position. The two analysts also expressed skepticism about Open Standard's claims. Open Standard stated that Open USD would go live later this year and share most of its reserve earnings with participating companies. However, William Blair analysts argued that Circle already offers similar incentives to its partners and described OUSD as 'a solution looking for a problem.' They also compared Open USD to past payment alliances like MCX and Paze, noting that such alliances struggled to gain traction against established networks. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire posted on the X platform, stating that USDC remains 'the most trusted, widely adopted, and institutionally ready stablecoin globally.' He added that Circle will continue to expand its ecosystem among banks, payment companies, capital markets firms, and enterprises while providing partners with more ways to become 'economic stakeholders' in the growth of the USDC network. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also commented on social media, saying: 'Welcome OUSD, the No. 2 player has joined the game.' [Original Link]