OUSD's "Hundred-Person List" Turns Out to Be a "Letter of Intent"? Borrowing Reputation Marketing Triggers a Crisis of Trust

Original author: Eric, Foresight News

On the evening of June 30 Beijing time, the emergence of a new stablecoin once again disrupted the stablecoin landscape.

A company called Open Standard announced the launch of the stablecoin Open USD, featuring free minting and redemption, sharing of reserve asset yields, and joint governance with partners. These open designs directly target pain points in stablecoin distribution and appear highly attractive.

What surprised the market most was that Open Standard had already secured over 140 partners before the stablecoin's launch.

This list includes several companies that have already issued stablecoins, such as Western Union, Ripple, MetaMask, and Aave. Gathering signatures from so many major players in Web3 and traditional finance before the stablecoin's issuance filled the market with both surprise and anticipation for Open USD's future. The clearest manifestation of this expectation was the stock price of Circle, the leading stablecoin issuer, which plummeted 17.55% on that day, leaving less than 20% margin before hitting a new low.

However, this explosive announcement was soon refuted.

On July 3, according to a report by The Chosun Ilbo, companies including Samsung Electronics, Dunamu (Upbit's parent company), Shinhan Financial Group, and K Bank stated they had never negotiated matters related to Open USD (OUSD). A Samsung Electronics representative said, "No formal negotiations took place, and we don't know what role we would play." Shinhan Financial Group, Dunamu, and K Bank also stated that Open Standard had inquired about their willingness to participate in OUSD, and they merely said they would "briefly discuss it," yet their names were included in the alliance member list.

Tony Chung, Head of BD at Korean Web3 media Blockmedia, also mentioned that a representative of one Korean company said they learned about being listed from Korean media reports and were very confused, as they had only casually replied, "We'll consider it if it's feasible."

Gabor Gurbacs, Founder and CEO of OpenAssets, retweeted Tony Chung's post and noted that Korean companies were not the only ones being misled. By contacting some of OpenAssets' clients on the list, Gabor Gurbacs received responses stating, "They said they never signed or agreed to any agreement. Either the media seriously distorted the facts, or the participant list is misleading."

It appears that Open Standard's "100-person list" may have included some companies that were merely contacted. In the original announcement, Open Standard stated: "Businesses across industries have signed up to use Open USD." Perhaps, in Open Standard's view, not explicitly refusing equates to "agreeing" to use Open USD, but agreeing to use it does not mean "must use it."

This is a classic marketing tactic of leveraging controversy for attention, and it did yield some results, albeit with a flavor of rubbing business ethics into the ground.

Facing such aggressive tactics and an opponent seemingly disregarding "martial ethics," Circle Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire published a lengthy post on X questioning Open USD's "three major features":

Free minting and destruction: Attractive in the short term, but potentially unsustainable at scale, lacking funds to maintain banking relationships, regulatory licenses, and technological infrastructure. Circle already provides favorable terms to large partners through contracts, not universal free access.

Sharing almost all revenue with partners: Could "starve" the infrastructure, leading to systemic underinvestment and limiting platform scale. Circle itself already shares most of its income with distribution partners.

Alliance/multi-company governance: Circle previously co-founded the Centre Consortium with Coinbase but later consolidated issuance under Circle alone. He believes the historical track record of multi-company product scaling is "very poor" (slow coordination, difficult decision-making).

Jeremy expressed a welcoming attitude toward OUSD joining the "stablecoin family," but his message subtly conveyed a key point: stablecoins are a business where time and accumulation lead to a winner-takes-all landscape; simply tweaking a few mechanisms is not enough to "secure a seat at the table."

Beyond these negative controversies, some companies on the list explicitly stated their support for Open USD's development. Stripe indicated it would set OUSD as the default stablecoin for businesses using stablecoins on Stripe; Coinbase also announced it would integrate OUSD onto Base and other chains, planning to launch later in 2026 to expand on-chain transactions, payments, and DeFi use cases.

Payment giants like Visa and Mastercard, financial institutions like BlackRock and BNY Mellon, and crypto-native projects like Aave, Solana, and Ripple also expressed support, though specific collaboration methods have not yet been clarified.

According to the announcement, the founding CEO of Open Standard is the CEO of Bridge. This Bridge is a fiat on/off-ramp solution provider that was previously involved in a dispute over the issuance rights of Hyperliquid's native stablecoin USDH, collaborating with multiple competitors. It was later acquired by Stripe, which is developing the stablecoin chain Tempo, sparking controversy. Given that Stripe clarified its partnership with Open Standard immediately after the announcement, the two appear to have a close relationship.

A user named Bojan on X stated that Open Standard's promotion is a typical "legitimacy-borrowing" behavior, i.e., leveraging the reputation or endorsement of other well-known, reliable entities to quickly enhance its own legitimacy and credibility, without actually obtaining their deep approval or formal authorization. For a stablecoin track that relies on trust as its foundation, OUSD seems to have left a somewhat negative first impression even before its launch. Written by Eric, Foresight News

On the evening of June 30 Beijing time, the emergence of a new stablecoin once again disrupted the stablecoin landscape.

A company called Open Standard announced the launch of the stablecoin Open USD, featuring free minting and redemption, sharing of reserve asset yields, and joint governance with partners. These open designs directly target pain points in stablecoin distribution and appear highly attractive.

What surprised the market most was that Open Standard had already secured over 140 partners before the stablecoin's launch.

This list includes several companies that have already issued stablecoins, such as Western Union, Ripple, MetaMask, and Aave. Gathering signatures from so many major players in Web3 and traditional finance before the stablecoin's issuance filled the market with both surprise and anticipation for Open USD's future. The clearest manifestation of this expectation was the stock price of Circle, the leading stablecoin issuer, which plummeted 17.55% on that day, leaving less than 20% margin before hitting a new low.

However, this explosive announcement was soon refuted.

On July 3, according to a report by The Chosun Ilbo, companies including Samsung Electronics, Dunamu (Upbit's parent company), Shinhan Financial Group, and K Bank stated they had never negotiated matters related to Open USD (OUSD). A Samsung Electronics representative said, "No formal negotiations took place, and we don't know what role we would play." Shinhan Financial Group, Dunamu, and K Bank also stated that Open Standard had inquired about their willingness to participate in OUSD, and they merely said they would "briefly discuss it," yet their names were included in the alliance member list.

Tony Chung, Head of BD at Korean Web3 media Blockmedia, also mentioned that a representative of one Korean company said they learned about being listed from Korean media reports and were very confused, as they had only casually replied, "We'll consider it if it's feasible."

Gabor Gurbacs, Founder and CEO of OpenAssets, retweeted Tony Chung's post and noted that Korean companies were not the only ones being misled. By contacting some of OpenAssets' clients on the list, Gabor Gurbacs received responses stating, "They said they never signed or agreed to any agreement. Either the media seriously distorted the facts, or the participant list is misleading."

It appears that Open Standard's "100-person list" may have included some companies that were merely contacted. In the original announcement, Open Standard stated: "Businesses across industries have signed up to use Open USD." Perhaps, in Open Standard's view, not explicitly refusing equates to "agreeing" to use Open USD, but agreeing to use it does not mean "must use it."

This is a classic marketing tactic of leveraging controversy for attention, and it did yield some results, albeit with a flavor of rubbing business ethics into the ground.

Facing such aggressive tactics and an opponent seemingly disregarding "martial ethics," Circle Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire published a lengthy post on X questioning Open USD's "three major features":

Free minting and destruction: Attractive in the short term, but potentially unsustainable at scale, lacking funds to maintain banking relationships, regulatory licenses, and technological infrastructure. Circle already provides favorable terms to large partners through contracts, not universal free access.

Sharing almost all revenue with partners: Could "starve" the infrastructure, leading to systemic underinvestment and limiting platform scale. Circle itself already shares most of its income with distribution partners.

Alliance/multi-company governance: Circle previously co-founded the Centre Consortium with Coinbase but later consolidated issuance under Circle alone. He believes the historical track record of multi-company product scaling is "very poor" (slow coordination, difficult decision-making).

Jeremy expressed a welcoming attitude toward OUSD joining the "stablecoin family," but his message subtly conveyed a key point: stablecoins are a business where time and accumulation lead to a winner-takes-all landscape; simply tweaking a few mechanisms is not enough to "secure a seat at the table."

Beyond these negative controversies, some companies on the list explicitly stated their support for Open USD's development. Stripe indicated it would set OUSD as the default stablecoin for businesses using stablecoins on Stripe; Coinbase also announced it would integrate OUSD onto Base and other chains, planning to launch later in 2026 to expand on-chain transactions, payments, and DeFi use cases.

Payment giants like Visa and Mastercard, financial institutions like BlackRock and BNY Mellon, and crypto-native projects like Aave, Solana, and Ripple also expressed support, though specific collaboration methods have not yet been clarified.

According to the announcement, the founding CEO of Open Standard is the CEO of Bridge. This Bridge is a fiat on/off-ramp solution provider that was previously involved in a dispute over the issuance rights of Hyperliquid's native stablecoin USDH, collaborating with multiple competitors. It was later acquired by Stripe, which is developing the stablecoin chain Tempo, sparking controversy. Given that Stripe clarified its partnership with Open Standard immediately after the announcement, the two appear to have a close relationship.

A user named Bojan on X stated that Open Standard's promotion is a typical "legitimacy-borrowing" behavior, i.e., leveraging the reputation or endorsement of other well-known, reliable entities to quickly enhance its own legitimacy and credibility, without actually obtaining their deep approval or formal authorization. For a stablecoin track that relies on trust as its foundation, OUSD seems to have left a somewhat negative first impression even before its launch.