Open USD is Almost Here. What's That Mean For the Industry?
On June 30th, Open Standard announced the creation of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin slated to go live sometime in the second half of 2026. While new cryptocurrencies are minted all the time, it’s immediately clear that this one is different.
Open Standard is a consortium made up of more than 140 industry giants, including payment networks like Visa, financial institutions like BlackRock, and tech corporations like Google. These kinds of companies tend to only lock arms when an enormous industry shift is on the way.
Open USD itself also has the potential to shake up the stablecoin market in its own right. Three attributes set this coin apart from other popular options like USDC and USDT:
- Companies can mint and redeem OUSD for free, without limits on volume
- Partners receive all the earnings from OUSD’s reserves, only giving up a small management fee
- OUSD will be managed by Open Standard, an independent entity with a board made up of OUSD’s partners (Visa, Coinbase, etc)
While some coins offer free minting, the earnings policy and the Open Standard governance are perks you won’t see with many other tokens. Here’s how stablecoin earning works: when users buy fiat-backed stablecoins, issuers collect real cash and place it into safe, liquid assets like short-term U.S. Treasury bills. The interest earned on these underlying reserve assets goes directly to the issuer as revenue, though some platforms share a portion of this yield with token holders or exchange customers.
For example, Circle Internet Group (USDC) essentially buys distribution by paying Coinbase around half of the coin’s reserve income. Open USD, on the other hand, doesn’t give a cut to a separate exchange, meaning their partners can often earn a percentage from the entire reserve. This earning policy may point hundreds of companies to partner with Open Standard over Circle.
It looked like this industry-wide backing of Open USD was a direct challenge to USDC and USDT, especially since some of their biggest partners stepped across the aisle to join Open Standard. As a result, Circle’s investors and partners sounded the alarms. Circle’s market value plummeted about 18% on June 30th, and it hasn’t fully recovered since. (Of course, USDC itself stayed stable, as is the nature of a coin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar.)
Their fears seemed entirely valid at the time, but as it turns out, it was unnecessary paranoia. Open USD wasn’t created to compete with USDC and USDT at all – it’s meant to work alongside them.
How Open USD Can Coexist with USDC and USDT
After the panicked response from the stablecoin community, some of Open USD’s major players clarified their overall intent for the future of crypto. "Visa, going forward, will remain multi-coin, multi-chain," said Visa CEO Ryan McInerney on a public earnings call in July,"Our role is not to pick winners. Our role is to help clients connect to the stablecoin ecosystem securely and at scale, regardless of which stablecoin, which network, which infrastructure ultimately gain adoption."
Two days later, on Mastercard’s earnings call, CEO Michael Miebach noted that they still support USDC and Paxos Digital’s USDG, and that Open USD will be "another coin that we will enable across our network."
There’s no real reason that one stablecoin has to elbow others out of its way. Those in charge of the payment systems that stretch around the world are perfectly content supporting other stablecoins alongside Open USD, even if they’re a part of the Open Standard consortium that created it.
While Circle’s investors were spooked by the Open USD announcement, it’s unlikely that Circle themselves ever broke a sweat. A little over a month later, on August 5th, Circle announced a new founding validator cohort and set of integrations for its open blockchain network, Arc. While Arc was technically created a year ago, this news represents a brand new model that allows Arc to meet the trust, security, operational, and compliance standards required of financial market infrastructure.
As you might expect, Arc supports USDC, since it was created by Circle. However, the network allows users to transact in other stablecoins of all kinds, including USYC, EURC, and its own native token, ARC. While USDT is one of Arc’s exceptions, it may be safe to assume Open USD will eventually join the blockchain’s list of supported tokens. Why? Arc’s new cohort happens to include BlackRock, Visa, MasterCard, Moneygram, and many of the same companies that joined Open Standard.
The updates made to Arc and the upcoming launch of Open USD may represent a seismic shift in the mainstream appeal of stablecoins as a whole. As more and more people learn about their utilities, more businesses may want to utilize them to save time and money on transfers, especially ones that cross borders. That’s why we built dedicated stablecoin on/off ramps into Slash.⁴
Slash is a modern banking platform that allows businesses to send and receive USDC and USDT across eight supported blockchains for faster, lower-cost domestic and international transfers.¹ As powerful as Arc can and will be, you’ll need to learn about concepts like institutional wallets and crypto staking to unlock its full potential. Sending and receiving stablecoins is simple with Slash, which is especially important when you’re introducing the idea to vendors and business partners.
No matter the exact tokens involved, it looks like the road to the future of business payments may be paved with stablecoins. To learn how you can use USDC and USDT to send funds from place to place in minutes, reach out to Slash today.
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