Open USD Consortium Targets Stablecoin Market Leaders
A new stablecoin consortium featuring Visa, BlackRock and Stripe is using a novel revenue-sharing model to break the liquidity dominance of USDT and USDC in a rapidly expanding payments market.
A consortium of more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, and BlackRock, has launched Open USD to capture a growing share of the global stablecoin payments market. The initiative distributes the token through exchanges, wallets, and merchant networks while returning a portion of reserve earnings to participating firms.
The launch targets a market undergoing rapid expansion. Stablecoin payment volumes are estimated to reach $390 billion in 2025, more than double the previous year, while total stablecoin supply has surpassed $300 billion. Open USD aims to capitalize on this growth by shifting the competitive focus from liquidity depth to distribution networks and partner economics.
This approach directly challenges the dominance of established tokens like USDT and USDC. "OUSD is primarily built to share stablecoin reserves across its partners, including Visa, Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard, and leading blockchains such as Sui," said Louisa Bai, Head of Stablecoins at Mysten Labs. "Its partner network and revenue-sharing model could increase competition in a market with deeply entrenched incumbents."
The new consortium is likely to squeeze mid-sized stablecoin issuers the hardest. USDT and USDC maintain a significant advantage through years of accumulated exchange listings and trading pair liquidity. "Their moat comes from liquidity depth and years of exchange listings," Bai said. "Mid-sized issuers face the greatest pressure because they lack the liquidity of USDT and USDC and the partner economics offered by OUSD."
Executing this strategy requires navigating complex corporate governance. Banks, payment processors, exchanges, and blockchain operators must align on decisions regarding reserve management, supported networks, and distribution strategies. The long-term success of Open USD depends on whether this shared revenue structure can sustain product integration across companies with fundamentally different commercial priorities.
Ultimately, the stablecoin landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented. Control is no longer held solely by token issuers, but is split between those managing reserves, payment companies controlling merchant access, exchanges providing liquidity, and blockchains setting transaction speeds and settlement fees.
