150 công ty liên minh OUSD, tại sao vẫn không thể lay chuyển được USDT và USDC?

Original text from ARK Invest Director of Digital Asset Research Lorenzo Valente

Translation by Qin Xiaofeng (Odaily Planet Daily) (@QinXiaofeng 888 )

Editor's Note: Over the past week, more “negative news” surrounding the stablecoin alliance project Open USD has emerged, including member denials of partnerships, casting a shadow over the project's prospects. Today, ARK Invest Director of Digital Asset Research Lorenzo Valente analyzes the disadvantages of OpenUSD and emphasizes the first-mover advantages of USDT/USDC.

He argues that stablecoins succeed not through alliances or revenue sharing, but via deep liquidity, ingrained usage habits, and integrated ecosystems. Giants like Binance will not jeopardize their core trading business—which depends on USDT liquidity—in exchange for OUSD's interest spread income. Alliance members have divergent incentives; OUSD overestimates the ability of a shared economy model to disrupt existing network effects.

Notably, Lorenzo Valente's firm, ARK Invest, added $44 million worth of Coinbase and $25.25 million worth of Circle stock in June. The following is the original text from Lorenzo Valente, translated by Odaily Planet Daily.

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The unveiling of OUSD has caused a stir on social media. Many now believe Circle is doomed, convinced that a 150-member alliance spanning payments, fintech, banking, crypto infrastructure, and consumer tech will crush its rivals and launch a stablecoin to rival USDC, perhaps even USDT.

I previously posted a thread explaining why people severely overestimate this move, and why an alliance is a terrible structure for conquering anything, let alone a market already forming a duopoly. In this short piece, I want to focus on just one thing: the true network effects of stablecoins. Rather than rehashing every argument, I'll develop a specific example everyone overlooks, because I believe both USDT and USDC possess severely misunderstood and underestimated liquidity moats.

The network effects of stablecoins are not created by a long list of logos. They are created by liquidity, usage habits, collateral acceptance, integrations, brand recognition, market depth, settlement processes, and the fear of disrupting what already works.

This is why I believe Tether and Circle are two profoundly misunderstood companies.

First, the obvious: OUSD will be GENIUS-compliant, meaning it cannot directly share returns with users. This isn't news, yet people still berate Circle for not paying yields to stablecoin holders, as if OUSD could do this. The reality is the opposite: Circle is likely the issuer passing the most value to platforms, and thereby to end-users, in the market.

This matters because many claim OUSD will create a fundamentally different return product for end-users. But that's not its model. The model is not “paying yield to stablecoin holders,” but “sharing the economic return of reserve assets with the platforms and businesses distributing and using the stablecoin.”

This is an important distinction.

The most potent argument I've seen for OUSD is that alliance members will have a strong incentive to deeply embed OUSD into their operations due to the revenue-sharing structure this provides. Without knowing specifics, let's assume its economics resembles other alliances we've seen: the operating company, Open Standard, retains a 25 basis point (bps) management fee, while each participant keeps 100% of the net interest margin (NIM) generated by any OUSD on their platform, network, or protocol.

On paper, this is a deal anyone would sign immediately. But it completely ignores the fact that these companies capture value in other ways, and, in many cases, their core business depends on the existing liquidity and network effects of USDT, USDC, other stablecoins, or simply other fiat currencies.

This incentive is attractive only if pursuing the NIM on stablecoin reserves doesn't jeopardize a much larger revenue stream. That is the key point.

The best case study in the industry, and perhaps the strongest counter-argument to OUSD, is Binance.

Binance is the largest, most dominant exchange by a wide margin. It originally had its own branded stablecoin, BUSD, which peaked at a supply of around $23 billion before the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) ordered issuer Paxos to shut it down in February 2023.

Look at Asia's top three exchanges, and you have three clear case studies. Today, Binance holds approximately $45 billion in USDT, Bybit holds around $4 billion, and OKX holds about $9 billion. Binance has been and remains Tether's stronghold and crown jewel; USDT is consistently the most liquid trading pair on the world's largest exchange.

Today, if you want to buy BTC, ETH, SOL, or open a large perpetual contract position, USDT remains the dominant quote currency in the offshore exchange ecosystem, a reality Binance helped cement. USDT is embedded in the deepest order books, most liquid trading pairs, most active derivatives markets, and the most important workflows of market makers and traders.

This is a real network effect.

Now, many of you are probably thinking: Why is CZ so naive? Why didn't he call Paolo and Giancarlo and demand at least a cut of the USDT earnings, maybe even a majority? Binance knows it has enormous bargaining leverage here.

The reason this never happened is incredibly simple: From a revenue and enterprise value perspective, Binance's crown jewel is its trading business, and that trading business is fortified by USDT liquidity.

Here's a breakdown of why it's perfectly rational for CZ not to chase NIM or try to replace USDT with a more “aligned” stablecoin. The rough estimates below are based on on-chain data and assumptions, none of which are confirmed.

Building from the bottom up:

• Derivatives (core engine). Binance accounts for roughly 40% of global crypto derivatives volume. Across cycles, average daily volume is around $40-50 billion, translating to annual volume of $10-15 trillion. The blended taker/maker fee after VIP discounts and BNB rebates is roughly 5 basis points (bps). That's about $5 billion annually from perpetuals and futures alone.
• Spot. Daily volume of ~$8-10 billion, annualized around $3 trillion, with a blended fee of roughly 15 bps (much lower than Coinbase's retail rate due to Binance's VIP-heavy user base and zero-fee promotions). That's roughly another $5 billion.
• Other businesses. Margin on savings/lending, interest on margin loans, Launchpool and listing fees, Binance Pay, staking commissions, plus float: they sit on ~$46 billion in customer stablecoins. While they don't aggregate and deploy it like a broker-dealer, corporate treasury and yield-bearing products on this cash are meaningful at these rates. Add in BNB ecosystem economics, conservatively another $5-7 billion.

Remember, these are bear market figures. Conservatively, Binance is a ~$17-20 billion revenue business in a bear market, likely approaching $25 billion in a bull market. An enterprise of this size and quality would probably be valued at over $200 billion.

So why doesn't CZ rush to replace USDT or demand better economic terms from the Tether team?

Because the entire reason Binance is what it is today, and why over 300 million customers keep returning, is that it is the most liquid venue on the planet. Let's price the deal Binance would effectively be making.

Binance holds $45 billion in USDT on its platform. Assume it strikes a deal with OUSD to keep 90% of the yield. At an average T-bill yield of 3.8%, that's roughly $1.55 billion per year. That looks enticing until you properly contextualize it: risking a $25 billion revenue engine for $1.5 billion in upside is something only a madman would do.

The glue holding Binance's trading castle together is USDT. No incentive in the world would make CZ reconsider the stablecoin to double down on.

And we don't have to guess, because someone has tried. Over a year ago, it was reported that Circle paid Binance a one-time fee of $60 million, plus ongoing monthly incentives tied to USDC balances on the platform. Despite this, USDC supply on Binance has largely flatlined at $5 billion.

People severely underestimate the network effects these stablecoins generate for the businesses that host them. In most cases, the upside simply isn't worth the risk of destabilizing your core revenue engine.

For an exchange, stablecoins are not just cash. They are the quote asset, the collateral asset, the risk management asset, the working capital asset, and the unit of account for millions of traders. Replacing this underlying foundation is not free.

Not all alliance members share the same incentive

Finally, the OUSD alliance contains very different types of businesses, which do not monetize stablecoins the same way.

Broadly speaking, there are two models.

Model 1 is AUM monetization. These companies and protocols benefit from idle balances, deposits, or float. For them, the economic return on reserve assets is directly relevant. A lending protocol, wallet, digital bank, or exchange with large customer balances will be highly motivated by the NIM generated by stablecoin supply.

Model 2 is turnover monetization. These are payment networks, processors, remittance companies, and commerce platforms. They monetize through transaction flow, not idle balances. For them, stablecoins are more of a payment rail than a balance sheet asset. They likely care more about reliability, cost, compliance, speed, reach, and customer experience than reserve yields.

An Aave and a Western Union bring very different things to OUSD. A DeFi protocol can help create supply by making OUSD useful as collateral or as a yield-bearing liquidity pool. A payment company, on the other hand, would have OUSD flow through its systems and be consumed at the edge. This is valuable for volume, but a completely different proposition from creating durable supply.

This is precisely why an alliance structure isn't as powerful as it appears. Members may all like the idea of shared economic returns, but their incentives are not aligned. Some will create supply, some will create turnover, some will deeply integrate, some will experiment, and some may do nothing after the news cycle ends.

In equilibrium, it's hard to believe all members will be equally motivated to promote OUSD; some will do the hard work of adoption, others will free-ride. This is the classic alliance problem.

Conclusion: OUSD is not irrelevant. It is one of the more interesting stablecoin experiments we have seen, and its economic model is clearly targeting the reserve income advantage of incumbents. But the market overestimates how quickly a shared economy model can overcome established liquidity barriers. Stablecoins are not won with press releases; they are won through deep, repeated, high-trust usage in the places where capital actually flows.

This is why USDT remains so powerful. This is why USDC has proven resilient and is growing so quickly. This is why OUSD, despite its impressive alliance backing, faces a much steeper road than the market currently assumes.

The core question isn't whether OUSD can offer partners better economics. The core question is whether those economics are valuable enough for partners to risk disrupting the businesses they have already built around other currencies or stablecoins.

In many cases, the answer will be no.