Open USD's Zero-Fee Minting Challenges Stablecoins as $7B Rails Grow

For DeFi builders and token holders, the stablecoin fight is moving from technical rails to economic control. HTX Ventures' Open USD analysis argues that after OUSD's June 30, 2026 launch, the key contest is over how reserve yields and governance rights are allocated among issuers, exchanges, wallets, and market makers. If Open Standard's zero-fee minting model gains adoption, it could redraw how stablecoin networks compensate their participants.

On Aug 13, 2026, HTX Ventures, the global investment arm of crypto exchange HTX, published a report titled 'Open Infrastructure, Closed Financial Rails: Open USD, Revenue Redistribution, and Participant Governance.' The report, distributed via PRNewswire and syndicated by FinanzNachrichten, examines the economic and governance shifts around Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin framework unveiled June 30, 2026. Its core claim is that stablecoin technical infrastructure has already been opened by public blockchains, but the economic layer remains closed: issuers capture reserve yields while distribution partners bear integration, compliance, and liquidity costs.

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Second, the convergence of Visa, Swift, Canton Network, Fnality, and Project Agorá suggests that tokenized settlement may become a core back-office infrastructure rather than a crypto-only phenomenon.

The report argues stablecoins have outgrown their original use as settlement tools in crypto trading. They are now used in cross-border payments, corporate treasury management, and institutional back-office clearing. It cites Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot reaching an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion by April 2026 across nine blockchains. The report also points to Swift, the Canton Network, Fnality, and Project Agorá as examples of efforts to settle tokenized deposits and central bank money within shared environments. This expansion increases the total economic value of the ecosystem but does not, on its own, change who captures that value.

Under the current model, according to the report, stablecoin issuers mint tokens against user dollars and allocate the underlying reserves into cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries. All reserve yield accrues to the issuer. Yet the stablecoin user experience depends on exchanges, wallets, payment companies, banks, custodians, and market makers. Those entities bear integration, compliance, and liquidity costs. They currently earn revenue mainly through bilateral commercial agreements, where bargaining power is a function of user scale. The result is a mismatch: the technical rails are open, but economic benefits are concentrated in a small number of issuers and scaled distributors, while smaller or newer infrastructure providers may be uncompensated for their integration work.

The report's central subject, Open Standard's OUSD, is described as a framework in which enterprises can mint and redeem OUSD free of charge and without volume limits. Rather than keeping all reserve income, Open Standard charges a small management fee and, according to the release, redistributes the remaining yield through its participant model. If executed at scale, this would invert the incumbent stablecoin revenue structure. Issuers that rely on retaining all reserve income could face pressure to share spread, while corporate users, wallets, exchanges, and market makers could be compensated more directly for distribution, compliance, and liquidity provision.