Open USD Consortium Draws Pushback From Korean Companies
A proposed stablecoin backed by an alliance of global financial and technology companies is facing early scrutiny after several firms named as consortium participants said they had not formally agreed to join the initiative.
Summary:
- Several Korean companies denied formally joining the Open USD consortium after being listed by Open Standard.
- Open USD aims to challenge USDC and USDT through a shared revenue model and institutional governance.
- The project remains under development, with launch targeted for later this year.
Open Standard, the organization behind the planned dollar-pegged stablecoin Open USD (OUSD), announced last week that roughly 140 financial institutions, payment companies and technology firms would participate in the network. The list included Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, Google, Samsung Electronics, Dunamu, Shinhan Financial Group and several major South Korean financial institutions.
Korean Companies Distance Themselves From Membership
The project’s credibility came under renewed attention after multiple South Korean companies publicly stated they had not committed to joining the consortium despite appearing on Open Standard’s published participant list.
According to local media reports, Samsung Electronics said it had held no formal discussions regarding participation and was unaware of any specific role within the initiative.
Representatives from Shinhan Financial Group, Dunamu and K Bank similarly said Open Standard had only approached them regarding potential interest in the project. The companies said they indicated they would review the proposal but had not entered into any formal agreement before being identified as consortium members.
One corporate official told local media the company only became aware it had been included in the consortium after reading domestic news reports, describing its earlier conversations with Open Standard as preliminary rather than binding.
The statements introduce uncertainty over the final composition of what Open Standard has described as one of the largest stablecoin collaborations announced to date.
Open USD Targets Shared Stablecoin Infrastructure
Despite questions surrounding consortium membership, Open Standard continues to position Open USD as a collaborative alternative to today’s dominant stablecoin issuers.
Unlike traditional issuer-controlled models, Open USD would allow participating institutions to mint and redeem OUSD directly by depositing U.S. dollars into reserve accounts managed by the network. Institutions would be able to create or redeem tokens without fees or issuance limits, according to project materials.
Perhaps the project’s most distinctive feature is its economic model.
READ MORE: Standard Chartered Rolls Out Bank-Led USDC Services
Where established issuers such as Tether and Circle retain most income generated from investing reserve assets, Open Standard says nearly all reserve-management revenue – after operating expenses – would be distributed among participating network members.
The model is designed to align incentives across banks, payment providers, exchanges and financial institutions instead of concentrating profits with a single issuer.
Competition With USDC and USDT Intensifies
If launched successfully, Open USD would enter a stablecoin market dominated by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which together account for the overwhelming majority of global dollar-backed stablecoin circulation.
According to the information, companies including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock have participated in discussions surrounding the project, with negotiations focused on governance and how reserve income would be shared among participants. Those discussions remain ongoing, and neither the consortium’s final membership nor governance structure has been finalized.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has publicly questioned the long-term sustainability of consortium-based stablecoin models, arguing that distributing most reserve income to partners could leave insufficient capital to fund compliance, banking relationships, liquidity infrastructure and ongoing product development.
Open Standard, by contrast, argues that shared economics can encourage broader institutional participation and accelerate adoption across payments, remittances and tokenized financial markets.
From an analytical perspective, the mismatch between the participant list and actual commitments suggests that the “shared revenue model” proposed by Open Standard is facing significant legal and compliance headwinds. For institutional giants like BlackRock or Visa, joining such a consortium requires stringent AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customer) guarantees that are difficult to standardize in a decentralized governance model. Investors should view this discrepancy not as a failure of the project, but as a standard “bureaucratic vetting phase” that typically accompanies any attempt to disrupt the existing dollar-pegged stablecoin hegemony
Institutional Stablecoins Enter a New Phase
The broader significance of Open USD extends beyond the identity of its eventual members.
Major payment companies and financial institutions are increasingly viewing stablecoins as infrastructure capable of supporting real-time settlement, treasury operations and cross-border payments rather than simply facilitating cryptocurrency trading.
The initiative also emerges as regulatory clarity improves across several major jurisdictions. The United States has advanced dedicated payment stablecoin legislation, while Europe’s MiCA framework and new regulatory initiatives in Asia have provided financial institutions with clearer rules for participating in digital asset markets.
Still, Open USD’s long-term success will depend not only on regulatory approval but also on whether it can secure formal commitments from the institutions it hopes to bring together.
The responses from several South Korean companies illustrate that discussions remain at an early stage, and investors should distinguish between organizations participating in exploratory talks and those that have formally committed to the consortium.
Until governance agreements are finalized and launch partners are confirmed, Open USD should be viewed as an ambitious institutional initiative that remains under active development rather than a fully established global payments network.
The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, investment, or trading advice. Coinspress.com does not promote or advocate for any particular investment strategy, asset, or cryptocurrency project. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable – always perform your own research and seek guidance from a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Kosta Gushterov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
