Open Standard's OUSD Alliance Gets a Group Reply: "We Merely Considered Considering This" 😅

Upbit on Friday clarified that it is not participating in the issuance of Open USD, distancing itself from Open Standard's June 30 announcement that named its operator Dunamu among more than 140 businesses signed up to use the dollar-backed stablecoin. "Upbit has only indicated our potential willingness to consider taking part in the future expansion of the OpenStandard ecosystem," an Upbit spokesperson told Cointelegraph. Open Standard did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

The pushback mirrors reactions from Samsung Electronics, Shinhan Financial Group and KBank, all of which were also listed as participants. According to a July 3 report by ChosunBiz, a Samsung official said there had been no official consultations with Open Standard and that the company did not know what role it was expected to perform. Shinhan, Dunamu and KBank said Open Standard had only floated the idea of joining and that they would review the request without committing. An official at another listed firm told the outlet, "We learned that we were included as members of the OUSD consortium through domestic news… We are perplexed to be included as members."

Open Standard announced OUSD on Tuesday, saying Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google, Coinbase, Stripe and Samsung Electronics, among others, had signed up. The project said businesses would be able to mint and redeem OUSD without fees or volume limits and that earnings generated from reserves would be distributed to participating companies. Some industry participants, including Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, have questioned the sustainability of offering free, unlimited minting and redemption, while Lorenzo Valente, director of research at ARK Invest, called the announcement a "giant" letter of intent.

Not every commitment is in doubt. Stripe Technology President Will Gaybrick confirmed OUSD will become the default stablecoin for businesses on the platform, a pledge that follows Stripe's $1.1 billion purchase of Bridge, the stablecoin firm founded by Open Standard chief Zach Abrams. OUSD's revenue sharing has been cited as a potential pressure point for USDC yields in decentralized finance, with Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) controlling over 80% of a stablecoin market worth some $311 billion, per DefiLlama data.

South Korea has yet to pass the Digital Asset Basic Act, leaving open questions over who may issue stablecoins and what roles companies can perform, and lawmakers have debated whether issuance should be limited to banks or opened to qualified non-bank issuers. That regulatory uncertainty has made it harder for South Korean companies to commit to stablecoin initiatives, as the rules governing issuance, reserve management and participation in stablecoin ecosystems remain unfinished.