US Payments and Crypto

Research evidence excerpt

US Payments and Crypto

Flashnote

30 June 2026

Financial Services

US Payments and Crypto United States

Open USD announced

Paul Rachael

Golding Harwood

What's new

• Open USD announced. Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, and >140 partners Alex Marni

announced Open USD, a consortium-backed stablecoin operated by Open Luthringer Lysaght

Standard, scheduled to launch later this year. The key differentiator is that

reserve earnings are distributed back to partners, with governance shared Payments coverage

across members rather than controlled by a single issuer. Ticker Rating Target Price Current price TSR

• Direct challenge to incumbent stablecoins. Open USD will allow free PYPLMA OutperformNeutral $$ 665.0050.00 $$ 509.6444.38 31.1%12.7%

minting/redemption and will return reserve income to ecosystem V Outperform $ 420.00 $ 341.65 23.7%

participants, creating an alternative to the current model where economics XYZ-AU Neutral $ 105.00 $ 115.18 -8.80%

largely accrue to issuers such as Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT). Led XYZ-US Neutral $ 75.00 $ 78.02 -3.90%

by Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge (acquired by Stripe for $1.1bn in Source: FactSet, Macquarie Research, June 2026

2024), Open Standard also benefits from strong institutional and execution Note: Prices as at 29 June 2026.

credibility, in our view.

Why it matters

• Constructive for Visa and Mastercard. Rather than simply supporting

third-party stablecoins, both major card networks will now participate in a

stablecoin ecosystem where they can influence governance and potentially

share in the economics of the token itself, vs just via fiat on-ramp and

off-ramp. This represents a meaningful evolution from simply enabling

stablecoin payments to participating in the underlying infrastructure