Stablecoin Consortium Launch Sparks Competition in USD Market

A new stablecoin consortium, Open USD, has been formed by over 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, Google, and Shopify. The consortium will be led by founding CEO Zach Abrams of the Bridge firm that was acquired by Stripe in 2024. Partner businesses can mint and redeem OUSD with no fees or volume caps, and they keep nearly all the earnings generated by the reserves backing the token.

The current global USD stablecoin market has a market capitalization of approximately $310 billion, with Tether and Circle remaining the dominant issuers of dollar stablecoins. The launch of Open USD is expected to be a threat to these incumbents, as equity markets have priced it as such, with Circle's shares falling about 15 percent in the two trading sessions following the announcement.

Major US banks have also disclosed their own tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, indicating competition in the space is heating up. Additionally, Circle has received final approval to open First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate as Circle National Trust and custody Circle's own USDC reserves.