Payments & Stablecoins: OpenUSD Consortium Token Carries Weighty Roster & LT Risk to CRCL

Research evidence excerpt

Payments & Stablecoins: OpenUSD Consortium Token Carries Weighty Roster & LT Risk to CRCL

Payments & Processors

FLASH

FLASH: Payments & Stablecoins: OpenUSD June 30, 2026

Consortium Token Carries Weighty Roster & LT Risk

to CRCL

●Open USD Announcement Confirms Prior Consortium Token Reports: This

morning, a consortium of 140+ businesses (Open Standard) announced Open

USD, a planned USD-pegged stablecoin that is expected to launch later this

year. The announcement confirms early June rumors of a consortium token (see Darrin Peller

our prior report here), and the scope appears broader than initially understood: dpeller@wolferesearch.com

key partners include V/MA, AXP, Discover, Stripe, Coinbase, and various other (646) 582-9310 View Darrin’s Research

banking, crypto, fintech, and payments participants. Shares of CRCL closed View Comp Table

down ~18% today; we offer updated thoughts below.

Cameron Dyer

cdyer@wolferesearch.com

646-582-9337

●For CRCL, the consortium coin directly targets two key areas of its model:

distribution and economics. Open USD's proposed design (see webpage here) Scott Wurtzel swurtzel@wolferesearch.com

would allow partners to mint/redeem at limited cost and receive the bulk of (646) 582-9313

reserve income (less management fees). We view this as another signal that the Paul Obrecht

largest distribution platforms, payment networks, and fintechs are positioning pobrecht@wolferesearch.com

themselves to capture more of the economics rather than outsourcing to Griffen Drebing

issuers like Tether and Circle, which make up the bulk of the current market gdrebing@wolferesearch.com

capitalization.

●Coinbase’s involvement represents a risk to CRCL, in our view, given

their historically close relationship. As a reminder, average USDC held in