A consortium of more than 140 companies — including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, Google, and Shopify — unveiled Open USD (OUSD) on June 30, 2026, a dollar-pegged stablecoin designed to undercut the economics of incumbents Tether and Circle. The token, which has not yet launched,...
"Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that's open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests." — Zach Abrams, Founding CEO of Open Standard and CEO of Bridge (Stripe)
A consortium of more than 140 companies — including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, Google, and Shopify — unveiled Open USD (OUSD) on June 30, 2026, a dollar-pegged stablecoin designed to undercut the economics of incumbents Tether and Circle. The token, which has not yet launched, redistributes reserve yield to participating businesses instead of concentrating it with a single issuer. Circle stock (CRCL) fell 17% on the announcement day and has declined approximately 30% year-to-date. Morgan Stanley subsequently cut its price target from $106 to $38.
The consortium's arrival coincides with $2.9 billion in stablecoin infrastructure acquisitions by the three payment networks in the past 18 months, a $310 billion total stablecoin market capitalization, and a regulatory environment shaped by the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in July 2025 but whose substantive rules remain incomplete as of August 2026. The timing is deliberate: Circle's revenue-sharing agreement with Coinbase — worth $908 million annually — expires on August 18, 2026, the same month Coinbase formally joined the OUSD consortium.
Three acquisitions over 18 months built the infrastructure now converging into the OUSD consortium.
Stripe–Bridge ($1.1 billion, closed February 2025). Stripe acquired Bridge.xyz, a stablecoin infrastructure platform, giving it the ability to accept stablecoin payments in 70+ countries and settle in USDC on Solana, Ethereum, or Polygon at a flat 1.5% fee. Bridge's transaction volume quadrupled in 2025, according to a February 2026 CoinDesk report. In February 2026, Bridge received a conditional national trust bank charter from the OCC, granting it federal oversight for stablecoin issuance and digital asset custody. Bridge CEO Zach Abrams now serves as Open Standard's founding CEO.
Mastercard–BVNK ($1.8 billion, closed August 3, 2026). Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin payments firm operating in 130+ countries with 25+ licenses. BVNK processes approximately $30 billion in annualized stablecoin volume as of mid-2026, according to Mastercard's investor announcement. The deal connects on-chain stablecoin payments with Mastercard's existing fiat rails for cross-border B2B transactions, remittances, and 24/7 settlement.
Visa stablecoin settlement expansion. Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $7 billion annualized run rate as of April 2026, a 50% increase from the prior quarter and roughly double the ~$3.5 billion rate in late 2025, according to CoinDesk. Visa expanded settlement support to nine blockchains — adding Base, Polygon, Canton Network, Arc, and Tempo to existing Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Stellar integration. Bridge-enabled stablecoin-linked cards are live in 18 countries, with planned expansion to 100+ countries by year-end 2026 across Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East. Visa reported 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs in more than 50 countries.
Combined, the three companies have spent $2.9 billion and built infrastructure spanning stablecoin issuance, cross-border settlement, and card-linked spending across more than 130 countries.
Open Standard, the entity behind OUSD, described the stablecoin as "infrastructure for global payments and settlement" on its June 30, 2026 unveiling. The consortium membership includes:
The economic model differs from existing stablecoins in three ways:
Zero mint and burn fees. No charges for issuance or redemption, with no artificial volume limits. Circle charges no mint/burn fee for USDC either, but retains the vast majority of reserve income.
Reserve yield distribution. The majority of interest earned on reserves backing OUSD will be shared with participating businesses after a small management fee. This directly attacks the incumbent model, in which issuers retain reserve income. Circle generated $1.68 billion in reserve income in 2024, according to its S-1 filing.
Consortium governance. Partners participate in governance rather than ceding control to a single issuer.
Material details remain undisclosed: reserve composition, custodian identity, the exact management fee, and which chains beyond Solana and Tempo will support native issuance at launch. The token is expected to go live in H2 2026.
The stablecoin market reached approximately $310 billion in total supply as of mid-2026. Tether (USDT) leads with $183 billion, or 59% market share by capitalization. Circle's USDC holds roughly $73 billion, or approximately 24%. Together, the two account for 82–87% of the market depending on the measurement date.
By transaction volume, the picture inverts. USDC accounted for approximately 70% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in H1 2026, according to CoinDesk, while USDT held roughly 25%. Total stablecoin transaction volumes hit $33 trillion in 2025, a 72% increase year-over-year.
B2B stablecoin payments reached $226 billion annually, growing 733% year-over-year, according to a February 2026 analysis by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics. Cross-border B2B stablecoin payments are projected to reach $5 trillion by 2035, according to Juniper Research.
Despite explosive growth rates, stablecoins still represent approximately 1% of global payment flows — a figure unchanged since 2023, indicating that the market remains in early stages relative to its addressable opportunity.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Citigroup have both projected the stablecoin market will reach $420 billion before the end of 2026.
OUSD's announcement triggered immediate market consequences for Circle.
CRCL shares fell 17% on June 30, 2026, the day of the Open Standard unveiling. The stock has declined approximately 30% year-to-date. On August 3, 2026, Morgan Stanley cut its Circle price target from $106 to $38, downgrading the stock to underweight, citing weaker reserve income forecasts through 2028 and growing competition from tokenized cash products. The stock partially recovered on August 11, gaining 6.13% to $71.16 on reports of native USDC deployment on OKX's X Layer.
The timing pressure on Circle is acute. The Circle–Coinbase revenue-sharing agreement, under which Coinbase earned $908 million in 2024 for distributing USDC, expires on August 18, 2026. Coinbase formally joined the OUSD consortium on July 4, 2026 — six weeks before the agreement's expiration, giving it leverage in renegotiation. CoinShares published an analysis on July 15, 2026, calling OUSD "the biggest threat yet" to USDC's business model.
The structural challenge for Circle is that its revenue model depends on retaining reserve income. If a competitor offers to share that income with distribution partners, Circle must either match the economics — compressing its own margins — or risk losing distribution. The $310 billion stablecoin market is large enough to support multiple issuers, but the economics of distribution are being repriced.
The payment networks are not the only incumbents responding to stablecoin growth. On June 5, 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported that 17 U.S. banks have committed to a tokenized deposit network operated by The Clearing House (TCH).
Participating institutions include JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, BNY, PNC Bank, HSBC, U.S. Bank, TD Bank, Truist, Regions Bank, Santander, Citizens Financial Group, Fifth Third Bank, Huntington National Bank, KeyBank, and BMO Financial Group.
The network has two components: an on-chain clearing and settlement mechanism for tokenized deposits between member banks, and a connectivity layer linking blockchain-based activity to TCH's existing RTP (real-time payments) and CHIPS (high-value wire) networks. Settlement will operate 24/7. The plan targets multinational corporates as initial users, with a launch window in H1 2027.
The bank consortium's stated purpose is to protect commercial deposits from the competitive threat posed by stablecoins. The architecture converts commercial deposits into tokens that move between member banks around the clock, preserving the deposit relationship — and the associated lending capacity — that stablecoins threaten to disintermediate.
The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, established a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. As of August 2026, implementing rules remain incomplete. The act's substantive regime takes effect on the earlier of two dates: January 18, 2027 (18 months after enactment), or 120 days after federal regulators issue final rules.
Multiple regulatory workstreams are in progress:
The July 18, 2026 statutory deadline for coordinated agency rulemaking passed without a final package from the six federal agencies involved. Globally, seven major economies — the U.S., EU, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, and Japan — now mandate full reserve backing, licensed issuers, and guaranteed redemption rights. Canada passed its federal Stablecoin Act (Bill C-15) on March 26, 2026.
The stablecoin market is entering a phase of structural competition driven by economics rather than technology. For five years, the dominant model was simple: issuers hold reserves, earn yield, retain it. Open USD proposes to redirect that yield to distribution partners, assembling a coalition large enough to challenge the incumbents from day one. Whether OUSD succeeds depends on execution details that remain undisclosed — reserve composition, custodian selection, regulatory approvals, and the actual management fee. What is clear is that 140 companies representing the majority of global payment volume have signaled they want different economics. Simultaneously, 17 banks are building a deposit-based alternative that avoids stablecoins entirely. The $310 billion stablecoin market is no longer a two-issuer duopoly; it is a three-way contest between existing issuers, a consortium-governed token, and tokenized bank deposits. The resolution will be determined by which model offers the lowest cost, the widest distribution, and the clearest regulatory standing.