ARK Invest Executive Questions Stablecoin Consortium Project OpenUSD: Could Repeat “Diem-Style Collaborative Failure”

Odaily Planet Daily News: Lorenzo Valente, Director of Digital Asset Research at ARK Invest, has raised questions about the stablecoin consortium project OpenUSD, expressing high skepticism about whether such consortium-style stablecoin initiatives can scale. He argues that similar alliances have emerged multiple times in the past, including Diem and Global Dollar, but ultimately failed to achieve dominant network effects. The current stablecoin market remains dominated by Tether and Circle, whose core advantages lie in strong network effects and instant liquidity. OpenUSD, however, may face a “cold start” problem, as a joint governance structure will severely slow down decision-making efficiency, making it prone to coordination failures under decentralized governance—similar to the governance dilemmas seen in DAO experiments: high collaboration costs, slow execution, and difficulty in deploying capital efficiently.

Furthermore, OpenUSD’s economic model appears unsustainable for long-term operations. If it relies on a low-fee revenue-sharing mechanism, it will be unable to cover infrastructure, incentives, and market expansion costs.

Lorenzo Valente concluded that OpenUSD resembles more of a “collection of letters of intent” than a unified product system with strong execution capabilities. He believes that in the long run, the more likely winners will be single operating entities capable of rapid iteration and independent decision-making, rather than joint governance structures requiring multi-party consensus.