With more institutions embracing stablecoins, the competition is increasingly shifting from issuing tokens to determining who controls the underlying infrastructure and network.
Unlike most existing stablecoins, Open USD will allow companies to mint and redeem tokens without fees while returning reserve revenue to participating partners, minus an administration fee. Governance will also be shared between members rather than being controlled by a single issuer.
The model targets one of the core economies of today’s stablecoin market. Issuers like Circle earn revenue by investing reserves backing their tokens in short-term US Treasuries and keeping most of the interest generated by those assets. Instead, Open USD plans to distribute this dividend to participating companies.
The approach is similar to the Global Dollar Network (USDG), a stablecoin consortium led by Paxos that shares reserve revenue with participating firms. Backed by companies including Robinhood, Kraken and Galaxy Digital, the network was designed to encourage wider adoption by aligning incentives between the issuer and distribution partners.
In Europe, a group of banks and payment providers launched Qivalis, a venture to develop a euro-denominated stablecoin as financial institutions seek to build shared digital payment infrastructure.
The breadth of Open USD’s support reflects this shift. Beyond Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard and Visa, launch partners include BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, US Bank, Shopify, Google, IBM, Mercado Pago, Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, MetaMask, Aave, Solana, Polygon and Ripple.
