BlackRock, on Monday, expanded its push into tokenized finance with the debut of two blockchain-based money market products designed to serve both traditional investors and the growing stablecoin industry.
The bank was also skeptical about Circle’s push into agentic payments, saying transaction volume has fallen to about $41,900 per day, with an implied average transaction size of roughly 24 cents, suggesting limited commercial adoption.
The stablecoin market is becoming more competitive following the introduction of Open USD, a new stablecoin model with shared governance and reserve economics. Morgan Stanley said that structure could make it more expensive for Circle to maintain $USDC distribution incentives.
The bearish call follows a downgrade from JPMorgan, which argued that Circle’s revised agreement with crypto exchange Hyperliquid weakened $USDC‘s economics. JPMorgan said the arrangement highlighted a growing “prisoner’s dilemma” between Circle and Coinbase (COIN), where both companies may increasingly compete to expand $USDC distribution at the expense of profitability.
UPDATE (Aug. 3, 14:05 UTC): Removes second word of the company’s name, Internet, from the headline.
