OUSD fake collaboration controversy? The credit game of stablecoins and endorsements from giants

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

Last week, Open Standard launched the dollar stablecoin OpenUSD (OUSD) and showcased a powerful lineup, with over 140 companies standing alongside, from Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, American Express, to BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, and then to Google, Shopify, Samsung, Coinbase, Solana, Ripple. As soon as the news broke, Circle's stock price fell that day, but just a few days later, this glamorous list began to show cracks.

Several Korean Companies Step Forward to Cut Ties

OUSD is led by Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge (which was acquired by Stripe in 2024), focusing on three aspects that differ from existing stablecoins: zero fees for minting and redemption, no trading volume limits, and returning most of the income generated from reserve assets to partners promoting adoption, rather than being monopolized by the issuer. In governance, it does not have a single controlling entity but is instead governed by a board composed of partners making collective decisions, resembling payment networks like Visa and Mastercard, with plans to launch on Solana, Polygon, Aptos, and Stellar chains first.

However, according to a report by South Korean media outlet Chosun Biz on July 3, several of the 13 Korean companies listed have stepped forward to cut ties. Samsung Electronics stated that there had been no formal negotiations between the parties, and the company was even unclear about its role in the alliance. New Korea Financial Group, Upbit's parent company Dunamu, and K Bank expressed nearly identical sentiments: Open Standard merely asked "if there was a willingness to participate," and their response was simply "we will evaluate," yet their names appeared directly on the official member list. More embarrassingly, some companies indicated that they discovered their listing through local news, and their initial response was merely "we would consider it if everything goes smoothly," feeling astonished to be included in the alliance.

This wave of skepticism is not limited to Korea. Gabor Gurbacs, founder of OpenAssets in the U.S., mentioned that several clients on the list told him they had never signed or agreed to anything, leading him to speculate that "either the media is seriously distorting things, or this participant list is misleading." Objectively speaking, this list is not entirely fictitious; companies like Mastercard, Stripe, Visa, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, and Adyen do indeed have executives endorsing it, and Stripe even stated it would make OUSD the default stablecoin for its platform merchants.

The real controversy lies in the OUSD model of sharing reserve income, as being listed as a partner implies enjoying economic rights, which makes the question of formal participation not just a public relations issue but a tangible business and credibility issue.

Reputation Built on Marketing Inertia, Past "All-Star Alliances" Have Fallen from Grace

Using the reputations of giants to build momentum is a long-standing marketing inertia in the crypto industry.

Chainstory analyzed nearly 3,000 crypto press releases from the second half of 2025, finding that high-risk projects accounted for 35.6% of all published projects, while projects marked as scams accounted for 26.9%. These suspicious categories combined accounted for over 62% of the total press releases. Meanwhile, low-risk projects only made up about 27% of the total press releases.

To discuss how the "All-Star Alliance" fell from grace, the most classic and fitting comparison is Facebook's Libra.

In the summer of 2019, Facebook announced with great fanfare its intention to issue the stablecoin Libra, boasting an unprecedented lineup: on the payment side, there were Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe; in e-commerce, eBay and Shopify; in the crypto field, Coinbase; even top venture capital firms like a16z were included. Almost half of Silicon Valley was rallying behind it.

Later, a congressional hearing turned its fate. Governments around the world were concerned about the impact on sovereign currencies and the dollar's status, with France being the first to oppose it. The U.S. Congress relentlessly pursued Facebook over its past privacy and data scandals, questioning "why this company should be doing this." Regulatory pressure quickly spread to its allies. On October 4, 2019, PayPal was the first to withdraw; just a week later, Stripe, Visa, eBay, and Mastercard collectively exited. All of this happened just days before the first council meeting of Libra, and before the first meeting even took place, the entire group was on the verge of disbanding.

The subsequent story was a series of desperate measures: rebranding to Diem, moving the headquarters from Switzerland back to the U.S., anchoring the currency value solely to the dollar, and operating independently from Facebook, with key figures gradually leaving. By 2022, the entire project was sold to Silvergate for about $200 million, marking its official end.

The lesson from Libra is not that the coin issuance strategy was wrong, but that no matter how dazzling an alliance list is, it does not equate to a functioning product, nor does it guarantee real channels are in place. Coincidentally, the Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe that abandoned Libra back then are now the marquee names on the OUSD list. Whether the same group of giants, under a different alliance, will have a different story remains to be seen.

Circle CEO Welcomes Competition with Open Arms

In the face of OUSD's aggressive approach, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that he welcomes competition and directly pointed out the essence of this business in his eyes: the stablecoin network is a business of platforms and network effects, where the market structure tends toward winner-takes-all, and building such a network takes a long time.

According to data from The Block's dashboard, the total market capitalization of stablecoins pegged to the dollar has exceeded $291 billion, with Tether's USDT accounting for approximately $184.3 billion, while Circle's USDC exceeds $73 billion.

Additionally, regarding OUSD's "free minting and redemption" selling point, he believes that market realities often force project parties to adjust their practices; Circle relies on contractual mechanisms rather than a blanket free approach. On "everyone sharing profits," he bluntly stated that distributing all income equates to "starving the infrastructure," leading to systemic underinvestment, preventing the platform from growing.

He also shared his views on the "alliance model." Allaire believes that alliance-type products have historically performed poorly in achieving scale, product-market fit, or even basic agility, stating, "A large group of big companies coming together often results in poor coordination, misaligned incentives, slow progress, and each having their own interests starving the alliance itself." He observed that when such alliances are formed, everyone is eager to put their logos on the list, stand on stage, and loudly promote openness, but when it comes down to it, each company's business departments will still make the best decisions for their customers.

According to third-party agency Artemis, as of July 2026, the total supply of dollar stablecoins is approximately $300 billion, with USDT around $180 billion and USDC about $78 billion, together accounting for nearly 90%; all new stablecoins combined amount to about $40 billion, just a small sliver at the bottom of the stack. Allaire believes that many stablecoins may have circulation, but most of it comes from promotions and incentives, with real usage being extremely limited, as liquidity and network utility cannot support it.

Conclusion

It can be said that the success of a stablecoin does not rely on rallying a group of alliance members to help with marketing, but rather on whether it has real use cases and real users, including specific scenarios like B2B payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border payroll.

However, we cannot yet determine the final outcome of OUSD; it indeed has the backing of substantial giants and a product model distinct from the existing market structure, and it may not necessarily follow the same path as Libra. This turmoil has revealed a recurring issue in the crypto industry: giant alliances can give a project tremendous momentum before launch, but the status of USDT and USDC has been built on the real application scenarios of exchanges, DeFi, payments, and cross-border traffic. Until then, is OUSD merely issuing a blank check to the market? The market will provide its own answer.