Circle Tanks On Open USD Debut: Bernstein Doubles Down With A $190 Price Target On CRCL

Circle has had a rough week, with CRCL shares dropping nearly 20% to around $62 on Tuesday— the stock’s lowest point since February— dragged down by a broader crypto slump and the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin project backed by more than 140 companies from both crypto and traditional finance. 

Bernstein, however, reaffirmed its Outperform rating on Circle this week and kept its $190 price target in place — a call implying a 196% jump from current trading price of $64. The firm’s argument: Open USD makes the stablecoin pie bigger; it does not immediately take Circle’s slice of it.

Bernstein’s Bull Case For Circle 

According to the numbers cited by the asset manager, Circle’s USDC stablecoin processed $5.3 trillion in transactions in just the first half of 2026, a pace roughly 140% above what the coin handled across all of 2025. 

Its share of total stablecoin transaction volume climbed from around 40% last year to approximately 60% so far this year. Additionally, USDC holds about 28% of the dollar stablecoin monetary base, and that base is growing fast.

But Bernstein also drew an interesting comparison that backs its thesis. Tether built USDT into a $180 billion stablecoin by planting it deeply inside Bitfinex and then Binance’s user base before scaling outward. 

Notably, Circle has followed a similar playbook through Coinbase (COIN), which holds about 25% of all USDC on-platform, then expanded into trading venues like Hyperliquid (HYPE). Much like Open USD’s launch, Circle’s Arc blockchain was also released in partnership with over 100 organizations across the payments, digital assets, and financial services industries.

A $330 Target On Coinbase 

On Coinbase — which appeared on Open USD’s founding partner list — Bernstein offered a measured read. Coinbase earns roughly 50% of USDC’s reserve income under its existing distribution deal with Circle, a figure that represents close to 20% of Coinbase’s total revenue. 

Bernstein said it does not believe Coinbase is pivoting away from USDC — instead reading the move as a broader bet on stablecoin adoption overall, consistent with how Circle and Coinbase previously shared reserve income with large partners like Binance and Hyperliquid to keep volume on the USDC network. 

The asset manager kept its Outperform rating and $330 price target on Coinbase as well, implying 103% upside from COIN’s current price of $162.

Jeremy Allaire On Open USD 

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire used the situation to lay out his own view of the stablecoin landscape in a post on X (Previously Twitter). He argued that stablecoin networks are winner-take-most platforms — the more developers and businesses build on a network, the more valuable it becomes, and the harder it is for anything else to displace it. 

On Open USD specifically, Allaire was skeptical of the consortium model, saying that large groups of large companies have a poor track record of building competitive products — they tend to move slowly, coordinate badly, and underfund the infrastructure they are meant to support. 

He noted Circle itself tried a small-group consortium structure in USDC’s early days and found it consistently difficult. Allaire concluded that Circle welcomes Open USD as a new entrant to the stablecoin market and expects many of its founding members to remain active USDC partners regardless. 

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