The CEO of ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, is confident that the stablecoin market will maintain the unconditional dominance of USDT from Tether and USDC from Circle in the foreseeable future. In her opinion, even the ambitious Open USD project, being created by a massive consortium of over a hundred major corporations, will not be able to shake the positions of the current leaders. Wood explains this unshakability through a powerful network effect: the more users, companies, and financial platforms integrate USDT and USDC, the higher their liquidity and value. It is this deep integration that creates colossal barriers for any newcomers trying to take a piece of the market, since stablecoins function on the principle of payment networks, where scale is of paramount importance.

The Open USD project itself was announced in late June by the Open Standard initiative group, led by Zach Abrams. The consortium claimed the participation of such giants as Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google, and Coinbase, promising to mint and burn tokens absolutely free of charge and without any limits. However, behind the loud statements lie certain scandals: a number of South Korean corporations, including Samsung Electronics, Dunamu, and Shinhan Financial Group, publicly distanced themselves from participation, clarifying that they had only preliminarily discussed the possibility of joining, but had not given official consent.

Nevertheless, experts note that even with a successful launch, OUSD will face the harsh reality of a market where leaders have already clearly divided their spheres of influence. According to a recent analytical report from Dune, USDT and USDC have actually stopped competing with each other: the first token reigns supreme in the segment of international payments and transfers, while the second has become the de facto standard for decentralized finance. Wood's colleague, Lorenzo Valente from ARK Invest, fully agrees with this opinion, emphasizing that it will be incredibly difficult to force users to massively migrate to a new platform when they already have established habits.

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The material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute a financial advice or recommendation.