CoinShares said on July 15 that Open USD, a stablecoin project backed by a banking-aligned consortium, could directly challenge the distribution economics and profit pool of Circle’s USDC. The firm’s view centers on Open USD’s proposed structure, under which reserve income would be distributed to participating partners instead of being retained mainly by the issuer. CoinShares said that setup could raise the cost for USDC to maintain its circulation network and create more tangible competitive pressure on Circle after Open USD’s planned launch in the second half of 2026. At the same time, CoinShares noted that Open USD has not launched yet and that important details, including its reserve structure and fee model, have not been disclosed. It added that USDC still holds existing advantages in liquidity, exchange access, and integration across DeFi and payments. Earlier, on July 1, Open Standard announced Open USD and said more than 140 companies had joined the ecosystem, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, Coinbase, OKX, MetaMask, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Solana, and Polygon.

Bitget Wallet researcher Lacie Zhang argues that Open USD, a new stablecoin launched on June 30, 2026 by Open Standard with backing from more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Stripe, and Coinbase, has exposed a core tension in the stablecoin business: reserve income may belong to issuers in theory, but distribution channels often capture much of the economics in practice. The announcement said OUSD would charge zero minting and redemption fees, impose no issuance cap, and return nearly all reserve income, after a management fee, to distribution partners. The market reaction was immediate. Circle’s stock fell about 16% that day, erasing roughly $3.6 billion in market value. The article contrasts Circle with Tether, saying the two operate in very different demand environments despite both issuing dollar stablecoins. It also frames OUSD as a bid to use reserve yield not as issuer profit, but as a budget to win distribution and establish a settlement standard. Zhang says the longer-term opportunity may sit above the issuer layer, in wallet and account products that abstract away fragmentation across chains and stablecoins. Bitget Wallet describes that direction as a cross-chain, multi-asset “dollar account” built for self-custodied users.

Crypto venture capital in the first half of 2026 looked bigger on dollars and much narrower on breadth. A report by Tiger Research and RootData, based on 9,416 investment transactions recorded from 2018 through the first half of 2026, found that total funding reached $13.3 billion, nearly matching the $13.2 billion raised in all of 2024. The catch is that deal count fell to just 435, down 78% from the 2022 peak of 1,978. The report argues that the old spray-and-pray model built around token generation events and fast portfolio turnover has largely broken down. Capital is now concentrating in fewer companies, especially later-stage businesses with auditable revenue models, clearer regulatory standing, and infrastructure seen as useful to institutions. Traditional financial institutions were involved in 54.5% of H1 2026 transactions, according to the report. Sector leadership also shifted sharply. Infrastructure fell from 50.9% of invested capital in 2024 to 14.8% in H1 2026, while payments and stablecoins, centralized exchanges, and prediction markets moved to the front. Gaming, NFT, and social-related categories declined steeply in both deal count and capital raised. The report’s broad conclusion is that crypto capital has moved away from making dispersed bets on narratives and toward owning or controlling strategic rails, licenses, and operating platforms.

Crypto venture investing kept its dollar volume but lost its breadth in the first half of 2026, according to a report by Tiger Research and RootData. The study, based on 9,416 investment deals recorded from 2018 through the first half of 2026, found that total capital inflows reached $13.3 billion in H1 2026, roughly matching the $13.2 billion raised in all of 2024. Deal count, however, fell to 435, down 78% from the 2022 peak of 1,978. The result is a market with fewer checks, larger rounds, and far less tolerance for unproven business models. The report says traditional financial institutions now hold a dominant position in the market, participating in 54.5% of investment deals in H1 2026. Seed activity has contracted sharply, later-stage rounds account for 75.2% of deployed capital, and $100 million-plus transactions now make up 7.4% of all deals. Sector leadership has also changed. Infrastructure lost share, while payments and stablecoins, centralized exchanges, prediction markets, and custody drew a larger portion of capital. In contrast, gaming, NFTs, and social sectors saw steep declines in both deal count and funding. Tiger Research argues that the old venture model of broad token-driven bets has largely broken down. Capital is now being directed toward companies with auditable revenue structures, regulatory licenses, or strategic control over core crypto infrastructure.

Mizuho has become the first major brokerage named in the report to downgrade Circle, cutting the stock from Neutral to Underperform and reducing its price target to $50 from $85. The bank said the launch of Open USD on June 30 by the Open Standard consortium could pressure Circle’s core profit engine because the new stablecoin keeps only a small operating fee and passes most reserve income to issuers and distributors. That model stands in contrast to Circle, which has relied heavily on retaining most reserve yield and sharing only part of it with partners such as Coinbase and Binance. The report, written by analyst Dan Dolev on Tuesday, also pointed to growing pressure ahead of Circle’s expected August renegotiation with Coinbase, its largest distribution partner. Mizuho said Coinbase’s support for Open USD could strengthen its hand in those talks. At the same time, USDC supply has slipped to about $73 billion from nearly $80 billion in March, while the broader stablecoin market has shrunk by roughly $10 billion since May. Mizuho raised its 2027 distribution and transaction cost estimate to 73% from 64% and cut its adjusted EBITDA forecast to $699 million from $1.09 billion.

OpenUSD has reignited the debate over who captures the economics of stablecoins. Announced on June 30 by the Open Standard consortium, which includes Stripe, BlackRock and Coinbase among 140 participating payments firms and banks, the new dollar-backed stablecoin routes nearly all reserve interest to its partner network rather than keeping that income at the issuer level. The market reaction was immediate: Circle’s stock, CRCL, fell 17% that day. The challenge, however, is less about instantly displacing USDC supply and more about redistributing the reserve income tied to stablecoin adoption. According to the source material, Circle derived 96% of its $2.7 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue from reserve income, while its revenue after distribution and transaction costs stood at about $1.08 billion. That makes distribution economics central to Circle’s model. At the same time, on-chain data still points to a deeply entrenched USDC network. In the first half of 2026, USDC settled about 79% of $38 trillion in adjusted on-chain transfer volume, with Base accounting for 69% of that activity. USDC is also embedded across Coinbase, Binance, Hyperliquid, Sky PSM and Aave v3, while Circle’s OCC-approved Circle National Trust strengthens its regulatory standing. The contest is shaping up around reserve income, market infrastructure and control of distribution channels.

Circle Internet Group came under pressure on July 14 after both Mizuho and JPMorgan issued bearish views on the company, sending CRCL shares down 3.68% in early trading to $60.68. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev downgraded the stock from neutral to underperform and cut his price target from $85 to $50, arguing that Open USD poses a structural threat to Circle’s current business model. The bank said the new stablecoin’s pass-through revenue-sharing design, which directs reserve income to distribution channels, challenges Circle’s practice of keeping most reserve income as revenue. Mizuho also raised its 2027 assumption for revenue-sharing and transaction costs to 73% from 64% and lowered adjusted EBITDA estimates to $699 million from $1.093 billion. JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington focused on Hyperliquid’s rising role in the USDC ecosystem. He said Hyperliquid now holds about $6 billion in USDC, or roughly 8% of supply, and generated more than $150 billion in July trading volume, equal to 11.5% of Binance’s volume. In JPMorgan’s view, a new revenue-sharing arrangement is pushing Circle and Coinbase into a prisoner’s dilemma as USDC supply slips from about $80 billion in March to $73 billion.

A market commentary translated by WuBlockchain argues that Open USD, or OUSD, may be a meaningful stablecoin experiment but is unlikely to upend USDT and USDC as quickly as some market participants expect. The piece says the real moat for the two incumbents is not branding or headline partnerships, but liquidity, collateral acceptance, integration into exchanges and DeFi, settlement flows, and entrenched user behavior. The author points to Binance as the clearest case study. Even if a new stablecoin offered generous reserve-income sharing, the exchange would still have to weigh that upside against the risk of disturbing the liquidity structure that supports its core trading business. The article includes a hypothetical calculation suggesting that replacing tens of billions of dollars in USDT with a revenue-sharing alternative could generate meaningful income, yet still look unattractive next to the scale of Binance’s trading engine. It also cites an earlier reported incentive arrangement from Circle to Binance that did not materially expand USDC supply on the platform, using that example to argue that subsidies alone rarely overturn existing liquidity networks. The broader conclusion is that OUSD’s challenge is not simply offering better economics, but convincing partners to disrupt businesses already built around other fiat rails and stablecoins.