Still, he argued that Circle’s 16% drop Tuesday went too far.
“I think it’s an overreaction,” he told CoinDesk.
He pointed to Paxos’ Global Dollar Network (USDG), another consortium-backed stablecoin that shares its reserve revenue with partners but has yet to gain significant market share. Its supply has grown to $3 billion since its launch in late 2024, far behind USDC’s $73 billion and USDT’s $145 billion, according to CoinDesk data.
“The biggest question is how OUSD can convince consumers and end users to adopt them,” Lau said. “We won’t really know the answer until it’s fully launched so we can assess market cap and usage.”
Hadick also cautioned that building an industry consortium is rarely simple.
“Consortia are difficult and easily broken,” he said. “Incentives are broad and often misaligned.”
“So, while the [Circle] selling the shares clearly seems reasonable, I also don’t expect it to be an easy or straightforward path for the Open Standard and I expect it to be more difficult to scale than expected,” Hadick added.
Details are still missing
Others warned that the announcement left several important questions unanswered.
Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, said Open Standard has assembled an impressive list of partners and is led by Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, “who knows what he’s doing.”
