[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is a key partner that helped grow Circle's USDC, but it is also reported to have joined the founding camp of the new stablecoin OpenUSD (OUSD).

According to blockchain media outlet CryptoSlate on July 2 (local time), OpenUSD is a stablecoin project involving more than 140 finance, technology and cryptocurrency companies including Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock and Google.

The key is its revenue-sharing structure. OpenUSD says it will not charge corporate clients issuance and redemption fees and will return a significant portion of interest income from reserve assets to distribution partners. In the stablecoin market, distribution platforms are beginning to demand a larger share from a structure in which token issuers earned returns by placing customer deposits in short-term U.S. Treasuries and other assets.

Coinbase's participation is seen as more than symbolic. In its first-quarter report, Coinbase said more than 25 percent of USDC in circulation, an average of about $19 billion, was held in its product suite. Its layer-2 network Base processed 62 percent of global on-chain stablecoin transaction volume in the same quarter. For Circle, its most important distribution partner has effectively secured a stake in a competing model.

The market also reacted sensitively. Circle shares fell about 16 percent on the day the OpenUSD consortium was announced, and investors focused on the possibility that the Circle-Coinbase relationship could be shaken.

The two companies' revenue-sharing agreement operates on a three-year cycle, with the next expiration in August 2026. The revenue-share amount Circle paid to Coinbase in 2024 was $908 million. Coinbase's stablecoin-related revenue in 2025 was about $1.35 billion, accounting for about 19 percent of its total annual revenue.

Circle moved quickly to defend itself. Jeremy Allaire (제러미 알레어), Circle's chief executive officer, argued on X, formerly Twitter, that "stablecoins are a platform and network effects business, and over the long term they tend toward a structure close to winner-takes-all." Citing Artemis data, he said USDC's on-chain transaction volume in the first quarter of 2026 was about $30 trillion and accounted for 80 percent of dollar-denominated stablecoin transactions on major blockchains.

Allaire stressed that an integrated infrastructure built over nearly 10 years would be difficult for a corporate alliance to replace in a short period. He said USDC is already deeply connected across major financial markets, DeFi protocols and global payment providers. He also said OpenUSD's zero-fee policy may be attractive from a marketing perspective, but the market needs a more structured commercial model.

Questions were also raised about the consortium's ability to execute. Allaire cited past cases involving large financial consortiums, saying major-company consortiums are not only difficult to coordinate but also slow, raising doubts about execution. He also cited that handing over all reserve-asset returns to outsiders would reduce capital available for global licensing, compliance and 24-hour treasury management infrastructure.

Market analysts also took a cautious view of OpenUSD's pace of expansion. Lorenzo Valente (로렌초 발렌테), head of digital asset research at Ark Invest, pointed to the "cold start" problem that new stablecoins face. He said major trading pairs in capital markets and crypto exchanges are already optimized around USDT and USDC. He said there is no precedent for a 500-company consortium of competitors functioning normally and that decision-making could become very slow.

Regulatory uncertainty also remains. Circle and Tether have built licensing and regulatory relationships across countries, but a single issuer joined by major global card networks, asset managers and retail banks could become a target of antitrust regulation.

Interests among founding members also do not fully align. Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, and major banks are testing their own tokenized deposit systems. Ripple is also launching a separate stablecoin.

Ultimately, the focus of this competition has shifted from technology to economic structure. As companies that distribute stablecoins at customer touchpoints seek to take more of the reserve-asset returns generated from their user bases, the issuer-centric model faces its strongest challenge from the distribution side. Circle now faces a situation in which it must grow the value of software layers such as its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and embedded wallets for institutions more quickly.

Stablecoins represent one of the largest market opportunities in the world as the internet transforms the infrastructure for storing and moving money. We deeply believe in this, and it’s why we both founded Circle and why we’ve invested to build the largest regulated stablecoin…