Zach Abrams (자크 에이브럼스), founder and CEO of stablecoin issuer Open Standard, used social media platform X (Twitter) to share his views on what it would take for stablecoins to function as real currency.

He said that after announcing Open Standard and OpenUSD (Open USD) last summer, he received thousands of inquiries about business partnerships. He said that talking with various partners made it clear how much companies need better stablecoins.

According to Abrams, stablecoins are super infrastructure that can be as stable as cash, offer good profitability and move over the internet like data. But the reality is different. He said companies can store assets in stablecoins but cannot use them properly for transactions, the most important role money is supposed to play.

He described the current situation with four examples.

The first is payments. Card payment processors want to settle in stablecoins. That would allow merchants to use the money immediately in real time within 24 hours of receiving it from customers. This could speed up the circulation of money and help economic growth.

The problem is that for card issuers, this settlement method does not lead to growth in assets under management (AUM), which influences their revenue. As a result, they have little incentive to invest.

The second is trading between institutional investors. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Nasdaq all want to adopt tokenised trading. For now, traders post collateral in dollars, which has the advantage of earning interest but the disadvantage of having to pass through slow fiat payment networks. Abrams said that using stablecoins as the base trading currency would allow liquidity to be managed far more nimbly and efficiently, especially in volatile markets. But he said such a shift would only be meaningful if users can properly capture the economic benefits stablecoins provide.

The third is corporate treasury management. Abrams said many companies want to put surplus cash to work rather than leave it idle. He said companies typically place extra cash in interest-bearing securities. Using stablecoins makes this process much faster and easier, he said, allowing firms to automatically move funds in and out of tokenised money market funds by program. He said interest could be earned even by investing for just 15 minutes or 30 seconds. The problem, he said, is that fees are charged for each transaction, and costs outweigh the gains.

The fourth is fintech and neobank infrastructure. Abrams mentioned his experience working with fintech companies such as Meow, Slash and Arq when he previously worked at stablecoin issuer Bridge.

He said all of these companies want financial infrastructure that can scale easily across borders, keep costs low and move remittances quickly. Stablecoins fit those needs, he said, but do not yet work for every situation. Within the United States, fiat-based infrastructure is still more economical, he said. Fees are fixed and remaining funds can be freely invested in money market funds. As a result, he said most fintech companies accept the inconvenience of operating a dual model: fiat-based in the United States and stablecoin-based overseas.

Abrams shared the situation to underscore that Open Standard is focused on solving the various problems stablecoins currently face.

He said Open Standard's business model is designed to increase actual usage rather than assets under management, and highlighted three points.

First, it shares as much as possible of the income generated from reserves with participating companies. He said every developer who builds services with OpenUSD is rewarded in proportion to their contribution.

Second, it charges developers only a small fee for each transaction. He compared it to interbank ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfers, where the money sent in an account transfer goes to the recipient in full and the bank separately takes the fee.

Third, unlike other stablecoins, OpenUSD does not charge a withdrawal fee at all.

He said that once OpenUSD is established, all of the problems he mentioned will be resolved. He said Visa and Mastercard will be able to use stablecoins for large-scale payment settlement, institutions will be able to use stablecoins as a trading currency, treasury managers will be able to automatically put even a few minutes or seconds of surplus funds to work, and neobanks will be able to expand far more efficiently. He added that if it succeeds, companies will be able to do everything they currently do with fiat currency using OpenUSD, while also benefiting from cheaper, faster, global and programmable infrastructure.