OpenUSD is taking aim at the part of the stablecoin business that matters most to issuers: reserve income. On June 30, the Open Standard consortium, made up of 140 payments companies and banks including Stripe, BlackRock and Coinbase, announced the launch of OpenUSD, or OUSD, a stablecoin backed 1:1 by U.S. dollar reserves. Its defining feature is that it sends nearly all reserve interest to its network of more than 140 enterprise partners instead of concentrating that income at a single issuer.
The announcement hit Circle’s equity story immediately. CRCL fell 17% on June 30, as investors focused not just on the arrival of another stablecoin, but on a direct challenge to the conventional issuer-led model in which reserve yield largely accrues to the issuer.
OpenUSD is pressuring margins before it pressures supply
The central question in stablecoin economics is who captures the interest generated by reserves, often described as float income.
For issuers such as Tether and Circle, that income has historically stayed largely with the issuer and has supported most of their revenue. In models such as Sky and Ethena, more value is passed on to users. OpenUSD introduces a third structure by routing reserve income to the distribution network itself: fintech apps, exchanges, wallets, merchants and payment processors that actually control end-user access.
That distinction matters because distribution has become one of the key differentiators in stablecoins. Circle already shares economics with major partners, most notably Coinbase. OpenUSD builds that principle directly into its design.
As outlined in the source material, Circle’s revenue is still primarily driven by interest income tied to USDC balances. In fiscal 2025, 96% of Circle’s $2.7 billion in revenue came from reserve income. A meaningful portion of that was then shared with partners such as Coinbase as a distribution cost. On that basis, Circle’s revenue after distribution and transaction costs, or RDLC, was about $1.08 billion, a more direct measure of what the company retains after paying for access to users.
The Circle-Coinbase relationship is a clear example of how stablecoin value has increasingly shifted toward platforms that control float and distribution rather than staying entirely with the issuer. OpenUSD pushes that logic further by making the distributor network the economic center of the system.
USDC still has the advantage of velocity and embedded usage
Even with dozens of stablecoins entering the market in recent years, the sector remains highly concentrated. USDT and USDC together account for roughly 86% of the market, with USDC representing about 23% and carrying a market capitalization of $73 billion. The article argues that this position was built through deep liquidity, a stronger regulatory posture, and broad coverage across chains and trading venues.
Looking at adjusted on-chain transfer volume and exchange trading volume through June 2026, USDT and USDC stand apart for combining heavy settlement usage with deep trading activity. By contrast, USDS, USDe and PYUSD occupy more niche positions. Global Dollar, or USDG, another consortium-based stablecoin, has so far failed to gain similar traction.
Settlement data is one of the strongest indicators behind USDC’s network effects. In the first half of 2026, USDC accounted for about 79% of $38 trillion in adjusted on-chain transfer volume, with Base making up 69% of that figure. USDT accounted for $7 trillion, or about 18%. In other words, USDC had lower circulating supply than USDT but moved faster.
Where USDC sits helps explain why it is hard to dislodge
The distribution of USDC across venues and protocols shows how deeply it is tied into market infrastructure.
On centralized exchanges, USDC serves as a major quote and settlement asset. In DeFi, it sits in money markets, vaults and DEX liquidity pools, and it is also used as collateral backing other stablecoins. Coinbase and Binance each hold billions of dollars worth of USDC, while Hyperliquid, Sky PSM and Aave v3 account for a large share of on-chain balances.
The shift in economics between issuer and distributor becomes even clearer through Circle’s relationship with Coinbase. As Coinbase reported in its first-quarter 2026 earnings, about 25% of USDC circulation sat inside Coinbase products. That reach allows Coinbase to capture about half of USDC’s economics, not by replacing Circle as issuer, but by using deep integration and user access to keep more of the value on its side.
Hyperliquid shows how platforms can absorb reserve economics too
Hyperliquid is one of the clearest recent examples cited in the article. In May 2026, Coinbase became the official USDC vault deployer on Hyperliquid, while Circle served as the technical deployer. The setup strengthened USDC’s position as the platform’s native stablecoin.
Under AQAv2, Hyperliquid can capture as much as 90% of the reserve yield generated by USDC balances on the platform. The article estimates that this shifts $135 million to $160 million in annual revenue away from Circle and Coinbase and into HYPE token buybacks and the broader protocol ecosystem.
The example carries two implications. One, USDC is already embedded in fast-growing centers of market activity, including on-chain perpetual DEXs such as Hyperliquid and Lighter, where the default quote asset can shape liquidity, collateral preference and downstream integrations. Two, issuer and distributor economics are already intertwined. Platforms such as Coinbase and Hyperliquid are no longer just places where USDC is held. They are now major economic participants in the float itself.
USDC still benefits from onshore reach and regulatory positioning
Stablecoin dominance is also a function of liquidity depth and breadth. The article compares how USDT, USDC and other stablecoins are used as quote assets on spot exchanges. On offshore venues such as Binance, Bybit and OKX, USDT still anchors the overwhelming majority of stablecoin-denominated markets.
On onshore and regulated exchanges such as Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, Bitstamp and Crypto.com, USD and USDC pairs carry far more weight. Coinbase has unified its USD/USDC order book. USDC is also the dominant quote asset on on-chain venues such as Hyperliquid and Uniswap v3, placing it directly inside perpetuals and DeFi liquidity flows.
Circle also holds a regulatory advantage. It has received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, to open Circle National Trust, a national trust bank that can hold and manage USDC reserves under federal supervision. The article presents that development as another factor strengthening Circle’s position as a dollar rail that exchanges, protocols and payments providers are willing to build around.
The real fight is over who gets paid for distribution
The framework laid out in the article suggests that stablecoin competition is now evolving around three issues: who captures reserve income, how deeply a stablecoin is embedded in market infrastructure, and what kind of regulatory structure sits around it.
By that reading, OpenUSD is better understood as a consortium-governed, shared-revenue network than as a direct attack on USDC’s existing supply. What it pressures is the economics supporting that supply.
The underlying idea is straightforward: reserve income would move away from issuers and toward the payment networks, wallets, exchanges and other distribution channels that drive adoption. Whether that shift becomes strong enough to overcome USDC’s liquidity, reach and regulatory advantages remains an open question.