Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase Commit $1 Billion to New Stablecoin: Is Open USD a Challenge to Tether, USDC, and RLUSD? - 24/7 Wall St.

A consortium including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase has committed $1 billion to a new stablecoin initiative, Open USD. The move brings some of the largest names in payments and crypto infrastructure into a market currently dominated by Tether (USDT) and Circle's USDC, with Ripple's RLUSD among the newer entrants.

The significance lies less in the dollar figure than in who is backing it. Stablecoins are increasingly used for settlement and cross-border transfers, and payment networks have a direct interest in how that infrastructure develops. A consortium model could also shape questions of governance, reserve management, and compliance—areas where existing issuers have faced recurring scrutiny.

What to watch: whether Open USD discloses its reserve structure and redemption terms, how regulators receive a multi-company issuance model, and whether merchants and exchanges adopt it alongside, rather than instead of, incumbent tokens. For now, the commitment signals institutional appetite for stablecoin rails, not an immediate shift in market share.