Visa CEO Ryan McInerney walked into a pointed question on the company’s July 28 fiscal third-quarter earnings call: does Open USD threaten Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC? His answer was deliberate and revealing. “Visa, going forward, will remain multi-coin, multi-chain,” McInerney said. “Our role is not to pick winners.” In two sentences, he reframed the entire Visa stablecoin strategy — not as a bet on Open USD’s success, but as infrastructure for whoever wins.
Summary
Key takeaways
- Visa will remain neutral across stablecoins, pursuing a multi-coin, multi-chain approach rather than backing a single token.
- Open USD is backed by more than 140 global companies, including Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, and Google, with a planned launch later in 2026.
- The Visa Stablecoin Platform, launched July 16, initially provides access to Open USD minting, burning, storage, and transfers.
- Visa’s stablecoin settlement activity reached an annualized run rate of about $7 billion as of March 2026, across nine blockchains.
- Open USD has not yet launched; no exact date, initial supply, or confirmed transaction volume has been announced.
Visa’s Multi-Coin, Multi-Chain Stablecoin Strategy
Visa is not the company you might expect to be agnostic about a stablecoin it helped launch. But McInerney’s framing on the earnings call was unambiguous: Visa’s purpose is to connect clients “to the stablecoin ecosystem securely and at scale, regardless of which stablecoin, which network, which infrastructure ultimately gains adoption.”
That is a strategically significant posture. Rather than committing Visa’s distribution power to Open USD, McInerney positioned the payments giant as the connective tissue of the broader stablecoin market — a role Mizuho analysts described as the “stablecoin of stablecoins.” In that framing, Visa captures value not from any one token winning, but from all of them needing to move through a common rails system.
Analysts Dan Dolev and Alexander Jenkins at Mizuho argued in a note that the proliferation of digital dollars could actually increase demand for a central network capable of connecting them, making individual stablecoins increasingly interchangeable and Visa increasingly indispensable. It is a counter-intuitive thesis: the more stablecoins fragment the market, the more Visa benefits.
Visa already supports several stablecoins through its settlement, card, and money-movement products. McInerney’s comments confirm that Open USD’s backing from Visa does not come with an exclusivity clause — or anything close to one.
Open USD Consortium and Governance Model
Open USD is backed by Open Standard, an independent consortium that has assembled more than 140 participating global companies — among them Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, and Google. The stablecoin is planned for launch later in 2026, though Open Standard has not announced an exact date, initial circulating supply, or confirmed transaction volume.
A different economic model than USDT and USDC
The design philosophy behind Open USD sets it apart from the dominant tokens. Where Tether controls USDT’s reserve management and Circle manages USDC’s economics, Open Standard’s model relies on independent governance and partner-led reserve oversight. Businesses will be able to mint and redeem OUSD without fees or volume limits, with most of the reserve income flowing back to the partners who distribute the token rather than to a central issuer.
That revenue-sharing structure is central to Open USD’s appeal as a distribution play. If realized, it gives banks, fintechs, and payment companies a direct economic incentive to route activity through OUSD rather than competitor stablecoins. Whether that incentive proves strong enough to shift behavior is another question entirely.
The reality of “partner support”
ARK Invest researcher Lorenzo Valente questioned how deep that partner support actually runs after listening to the earnings call. “It is becoming increasingly clear that the commitment from OUSD’s partners is closer to a soft LOI than a strategic bet,” Valente posted on social media. “Of course they will support it. But supporting OUSD is very different from committing meaningful resources, distribution, or balance sheet to making it win.”
That is an external analyst’s interpretation, not a disclosed term from Visa or Open Standard. Neither company has published figures showing capital commitments, distribution targets, or minimum transaction obligations for consortium members.
Visa Stablecoin Platform and Market Position
Visa’s most concrete move in this space came on July 16, when it launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform — a managed environment for banks, fintechs, and crypto companies to access stablecoin minting, burning, storage, and transfers. Open USD is the platform’s first supported asset, but Visa has stated that broader multi-stablecoin access is part of the longer-term design.
The platform connects to Visa’s existing stablecoin settlement, linked-card, and money-movement services, meaning institutions can use Open USD — or other supported stablecoins — without building their own wallet infrastructure, security systems, or treasury functions from scratch. That is a meaningful reduction in technical friction for any financial institution considering stablecoin adoption.
$7 billion and nine blockchains
The scale behind that platform is not trivial. Visa reported in June that its stablecoin settlement activity had reached an annualized run rate of about $7 billion as of March 2026, after growing 50% in a single quarter. The settlement pilot now spans nine blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon, Avalanche, Stellar, Canton, Arc, and Tempo — a significant expansion from the initial limited trials.
That operational breadth gives Visa genuine credibility in the stablecoin infrastructure space. It is not theorizing about stablecoin adoption; it is already processing billions of dollars in stablecoin-settled transactions annually.
Challenges and Dependencies for Open USD Adoption
Open USD’s market entry faces a set of real-world tests that consortium size alone cannot answer. Adoption will depend on reserve arrangements, regulatory compliance, actual partner integrations post-launch, and customer demand — none of which has been demonstrated at scale yet.
The token’s announcement did shake one established player. Circle’s stock fell 17.5% on June 30, around the time of Open USD’s announcement, though Russell index removals also contributed to that decline, making it difficult to isolate OUSD’s precise market impact. Mizuho downgraded Circle citing the OUSD threat, while Bernstein analysts cut Circle’s price target to $140 but argued the OUSD impact on Circle’s business would ultimately fade.
No on-chain activity yet
Because Open USD has not launched, there is no verified on-chain activity, no live market capitalization, and no transaction volume to compare against USDT or USDC. The token exists as a planned product backed by a large consortium — that is a real foundation, but it is not yet market proof.
McInerney acknowledged this gap indirectly during the earnings call. “As much as we talk about stablecoins on this call and in other venues, stablecoins really have yet to scale beyond a few use cases like stablecoin-linked cards,” he said. It was a candid observation from the CEO of a company already running a $7 billion annualized stablecoin settlement operation — and a signal that the market still has significant room to develop before any new entrant can truly test itself against USDT’s dominance.
Visa has built the first access route for Open USD through its platform. It has also made unmistakably clear it will support whoever else succeeds. For OUSD, that means gaining access to Visa’s infrastructure without gaining Visa’s exclusive backing — a distribution advantage without a decisive institutional commitment behind it.
FAQ
What is Visa’s strategy regarding stablecoins like Open USD?
Visa pursues a neutral, multi-coin and multi-chain strategy, aiming to help clients connect to various stablecoins without picking a single winner. CEO Ryan McInerney confirmed this stance on the company’s July 28 fiscal third-quarter earnings call.
Who supports the Open USD stablecoin consortium?
Open USD is supported by more than 140 companies worldwide, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, and Google, organized under an independent consortium called Open Standard.
When will Open USD launch and what is its governance model?
Open USD is planned to launch later in 2026, with an independent, partner-led governance model. Unlike USDT and USDC, where the issuing company controls reserve management, Open Standard’s model distributes reserve income back to participating partners. No exact launch date, initial supply, or confirmed transaction volume has been announced.
How does Visa integrate Open USD into its services?
Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform on July 16, initially providing access to Open USD minting, burning, storage, and transfers through a managed environment. The platform also connects with Visa’s existing stablecoin settlement, linked-card, and money-movement services, while maintaining compatibility with other stablecoins.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
