US Digital Assets: The Race for the New Money Movement Stack: Issue #2

Research evidence excerpt

US Digital Assets: The Race for the New Money Movement Stack: Issue #2

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01 Jul 2026 07:27:16 ET │ 13 pages

US Digital Assets

The Race for the New Money Movement Stack: Issue #2

CITI'S TAKE

Peter Christiansen, CFA AC

We view the recent Open Standard/Open USD announcement as +1-212-816-8702

incrementally negative for CRCL and more nuanced for COIN. For CRCL, the peter.christiansen@citi.com

risk is not immediate displacement, but a credible new model for enterprise

stablecoin adoption: neutral governance, no-fee mint/redeem, and shared Aditi Balachandran

reserve economics. For COIN, participation appears to be a strategic hedge +1-212-816-0903

to ensure Coinbase remains a core distribution/settlement venue if aditi.balachandran@citi.com

stablecoin economics migrate from issuer-led networks toward multi-party

infrastructure. Notably, Coinbase’s inclusion in the consortium raises Nicolette Radomski

multiple questions as to its current partnership agreement with Circle. +1-716-730-7538

nicolette.radomski@citi.com

A New Competitive Vector in Stablecoins — Open USD reportedly includes Visa,

Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, Blackrock, BNY Mellon, Google, IBM among 140

others, with Open USD expected to launch later this year. The stablecoin is expected

to allow free business minting/redemption and share reserve earnings, net of

management fee, among consortium participants (The Block, 6/30).

Incremental Negative for CRCL — For Circle, the announcement pressures the long-

term narrative around USDC as the default regulated enterprise stablecoin. Circle

still has major advantages: liquidity, brand, compliance infrastructure, developer

adoption, full-stack capabilities (including Arc and Agent Stack), and existing

integrations.