Visa Mastercard and Coinbase join Open USD as partner-led stablecoin increases DeFi yield war
Open Standard’s Open USD stablecoin is challenging USDC’s dominance by letting businesses mint and redeem for free, at unlimited volume, while sharing reserve earnings with partner businesses after fees. Backed by over 140 partners including Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Aave, Morpho, MetaMask, and Trust Wallet, it shifts stablecoin competition from trust and compliance to incentives: who gets paid to hold, route, and lend digital dollars. Planned native support on Plasma and Tempo could bring reserve economics directly into DeFi through liquidity mining, boosted lending rates, wallet cashback, and bridge rebates, while still avoiding issuer-paid interest under the GENIUS Act. That regulatory gray zone is already visible with Coinbase rewards on USDC and PayPal rewards on PYUSD. The market is huge: stablecoin supply is near $312 billion, and even modest reserve yields could generate tens of millions per $1 billion circulating. The key question is whether partner-driven incentives can pull liquidity from USDC and USDT, or whether Open USD remains mostly an enterprise settlement token.
