Cryptocurrency

Visa Mastercard and Coinbase join Open USD as partner-led stablecoin increases DeFi yield war – Crypto News

Published

4 weeks ago

July 1, 2026

Dripp

Crypto users spent years making USDC the default dollar of institutional DeFi trading, lending, and settlement, but Open Standard’s new Open USD stablecoin is testing whether the dollars users hold can be repaid.

Open Standard says businesses will be able to mint and redeem Open USD for free, at unlimited volume, and that reserve earnings will flow to partner businesses net of a management fee.

The initiative already has over 140 businesses, including Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase. Open Standard frames the design around scale, earning by default, and a governance board drawn from partner businesses.

That structure amounts to a real turn in how the stablecoin wars have unfolded, from a fight over trust between Tether and Circle, through a compliance fight as GENIUS and MiCA rewarded regulated issuers, into a distribution fight as payment networks and exchanges competed for placement on apps and rails.

Open USD pushes that contest into a new phase, fought over incentives: who gets paid to hold, route, and lend the next digital dollar.

DeFi commentator Ignas argued that crypto-native users built USDC’s liquidity, volume, and habit formation, while the economic upside flowed to Circle, Coinbase, and their distribution partners.

A diagram titled “The stablecoin wars: four phases” outlines escalation from trust (USDT vs USDC) through compliance, distribution, and finally an incentive war over DeFi rewards.

Where the money could go

Plasma is the key test of whether that behavior finds a new home, as the network already markets itself around stablecoin spending, saving, sending, and earning through Plasma One, a product that offers instant transfers, global spending, cashback, and balance-based earning.

Open USD is planned to launch with native support on Plasma and Tempo later this year. If that holds, reserve economics built for institutions could reach DeFi users directly through chain-level rewards.

A partner that collects reserve-share income can turn it into liquidity mining on a decentralized exchange, boosted lending rates on Open USD collateral, cashback in a wallet, or routed rebates via a bridge.

Incentive route	Who could fund it	What users see	DeFi impact
DEX liquidity mining	Chains, protocols, or Open USD partners	Rewards for supplying Open USD liquidity	Builds trading depth and tighter stablecoin swaps
Lending-market boosts	Lending protocols or ecosystem funds	Higher APY for supplying Open USD collateral	Makes Open USD useful in DeFi leverage loops
Wallet cashback	Wallets, payment apps, or card partners	Rewards for spending, holding, or routing Open USD	Turns stablecoin adoption into consumer habit
Bridge/routing rebates	Bridges, chains, or aggregators	Lower fees or rebates for moving Open USD	Pulls settlement volume across preferred rails
Exchange campaigns	CEX partners	Fee discounts, earn products, or trading rewards	Helps Open USD compete with USDC and USDT liquidity

Each of those routes puts the incentive in a partner’s hands, which keeps Open USD inside the lines regulators have drawn around stablecoin interest.

The GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly to holders, and the rule leaves open the extent to which affiliates and third parties may offer interest.

Coinbase already pays rewards on USDC balances, and PayPal pays them on PYUSD, a structure banks have criticized as a workaround that pulls deposits out of the regulated banking system.

Open USD’s partner list, which already includes wallets, exchanges, and DeFi protocols such as Aave, Morpho, MetaMask, and Trust Wallet, sits inside that same gray zone.

How big the prize is, and how it breaks

The market Open USD is entering is large enough to make that gray zone worth fighting over.

DeFiLlama puts the total stablecoin supply at nearly $312 billion, with USDT at about $184.6 billion and USDC at around $73.9 billion. Citi has raised its 2030 stablecoin forecast to $1.9 trillion in its base case and $4 trillion in its bull case, citing faster growth and a wave of new issuer announcements.