On July 15, 2026, a recent report by CoinShares brings the dollar-pegged token market, long dominated by USDT and USDC, into a more direct profit competition: it names the Open USD Alliance, composed of over 140 institutions including BlackRock, Coinbase, Mastercard, Stripe, and Visa, which is preparing a dollar-pegged token designed to reward exchanges, payment institutions, and other ecological partners with the earnings generated from reserve assets, while the alliance itself only charges a management fee. CoinShares bluntly states that this structure of "profit sharing with the channels" directly confronts Circle's USDC—the latter relies on user-collateralized dollar reserves invested in low-risk assets, locking the interest generated on the issuer's books instead of passing it on to distribution and usage scenarios. Amid the large alliance and existing leaders, the technology of tokens becomes a secondary concern, as "where the reserve income ultimately goes" starts to become the real battleground in the competition for dollar-pegged tokens.
Who Gets the Interest? Open USD Rewrites the Distribution Ledger
In the world of USDC, interest has always been recorded on the issuer's own ledger. Users pledge dollars to Circle, which then invests this portion of dollar reserves into low-risk assets like U.S. Treasury bonds, with all the interest being owned by the issuer, not flowing back to channels such as exchanges and payment institutions, nor directly distributed to token holders. This structure of "interest concentrated at the center" has supported USDC's distribution network over the past few years: partners connect with USDC more for compliance image and institutional collaboration resources, using it to complete payments, custody, and trade matching, while the earnings from the reserves quietly accumulate on Circle's profit statement, becoming a significant source of profit for this dollar-pegged token issuer.
The Open USD Alliance has chosen to rewrite the numbers on the same ledger. CoinShares pointed out in its July 15 report that Open USD plans to distribute the earnings generated from dollar reserves to ecological partners, including exchanges and payment institutions, while the alliance itself only charges a management fee. This means that the same reserve interest, which is profit for Circle under the USDC model, becomes a shared profit for partners under the Open USD model. For the channels, selling USDC is “helping others accumulate interest,” while selling Open USD is “helping oneself increase earnings,” completely flipping the incentive structure. CoinShares bluntly states that this profit-sharing model directly challenges Circle and weakens USDC’s distribution economy: when interest is no longer solely enjoyed by the issuer, USDC will have to concede on fees, rebates, or even profit-sharing to retain the same channels, effectively raising the cost of distributing each of its tokens, turning "who gets the interest" from an internal financial line into an external competitive pressure on USDC's business model.
Backed by BlackRock, Supported by Visa: The Assembled Channel Army
What the profit-sharing model aims to leverage first is the channels. The Open USD Alliance has now gathered over 140 members, including Wall Street asset management giant BlackRock, payment networks like Visa and Mastercard that penetrate global merchant endpoints, as well as crypto-native platforms like Coinbase. In simple terms, this represents a complete link from U.S. Treasury trading desks to card terminals at corner coffee shops, and to exchange matching engines, with the alliance’s proposal to "distribute reserve earnings to the ecology while only charging management fees" attempting to turn every node in this link into a community of interests, rather than just a distribution channel for USDC.
The significance of this lineup goes beyond just "good branding." BlackRock has deep expertise in dollar assets and short-term debt investment, possessing professional authority on how reserves should be allocated; Visa and Mastercard control the mainstream global payment networks, holding the keys to merchant and cross-border payment scenarios; Coinbase occupies an important position in the trading and custody of dollar-denominated crypto assets in the U.S., serving as a crucial bridge between compliance and on-chain. CoinShares' report and brief imply that when these traditional finance and crypto giants place their logos in the same alliance, the friction cost of regulatory approval and institutional adoption could be significantly lowered, allowing Open USD to potentially move faster toward compliance pathways and pilot projects with large clients than a single issuer knocking on doors alone. Once the gates of regulation and the institutions are pried open by this alliance, Open USD will no longer just be a new token symbol, but a systemic channel variable pressing down on Circle.
Circle’s Dilemma: Preserve Profits or Territory?
When Open USD presents "distributing reserve earnings to ecological partners while the alliance only charges management fees," what is really being pitted against each other is Circle's old contracts: channels help pave the road, but the interest is only settled on the issuer's books. CoinShares' report has already pointed out that this model directly impacts the core profitability of USDC, which relies on interest from reserve investments, and could raise the distribution cost of USDC, as partners who were originally willing to "contribute traffic and scenarios for free" suddenly have an alternative option for dividend distribution. For USDC, which has long relied on compliance image and institutional collaboration to expand its territory, this means a real choice—whether to continue tightly holding onto reserve earnings or to concede on revenue distribution to maintain priority support for USDC from channels and institutions.
If we look at it from a scenario simulation perspective, suppose major payment institutions and trading platforms begin to calculate the distinctions between USDC and Open USD: one side has a mature compliance and brand image, while the other offers visible revenue sharing; then in high-frequency scenarios like payment settlements, OTC settlements, and trade matching, USDC's market share could gradually dilute, as its territorial advantages give way to newcomers that are more "channel-friendly." The same report also notes that Open USD amounts to using profit sharing to "buy" distribution pathways, and once this incentive structure is accepted by leading partners, the channels that USDC has stabilized through relationship networks and compliance barriers may very well become the trial fields for the first to explore the profit-sharing model. It must be emphasized that as of July 15, 2026, Circle had not provided any official response to Open USD or related reports, and external speculation about whether it would adjust its revenue strategy or how to balance profitability and channel territory remains purely hypothetical, rather than reflective of any decisions already made.
From USDT to Open USD: The Profit War Escalates
Before Open USD emerged, the landscape of dollar-pegged tokens had been virtually a duopoly for years: on one side was USDT, firmly occupying the global trading volume and becoming the "default choice" for market makers and retail investors due to its high penetration across exchanges and jurisdictions; on the other side was USDC, betting on compliance and institutional collaboration, portraying itself as the "model student of compliance" through audit disclosures, licensing pathways, and partnerships with large payment and custody institutions. Their competition has long focused on transparency, compliance pathways, and secondary market liquidity—who provides more detailed disclosures, who circulates more easily through banks and payment systems, and who can maintain a steadier exchange window in extreme market conditions. The reserve earnings that truly support their profitability have always been a black box clause of the background, enjoyed solely by the issuer and not negotiated as leverage between the channels.
The sharp point of CoinShares’ July 15 report lies in bringing this "background clause" to the forefront: Open USD proposes distributing the earnings generated from dollar reserves to ecological partners, while the alliance itself only charges a management fee, indicating that the competition around compliance and liquidity is being rewritten as a revenue game around business models and channel profits. More crucially, this battle of models is not occurring in a vacuum within the crypto realm. On the same day, the three major U.S. stock indices collectively rose, with the Dow up 0.18%, the S&P 500 up 0.41%, and the Nasdaq up 0.63%, while crypto-related stocks also saw widespread gains, showing that the linkage between traditional financial assets and crypto-related entities is deepening. In this macro context, the revenue distribution model that Open USD is expected to launch in the second half of 2026 (the timing remains uncertain) is not just a challenge to the profit statement of a single issuer like USDC, but pushes the question of "who dominates dollar earnings, and who gives back to channels and holders" to the center of the entire dollar-pegged token ecology.
The Biggest Threat or Just a Bluffer? Key Variables Await Unveiling
In CoinShares' narrative, Open USD is not another dollar-pegged token with slight differences in its tech stack, but the first opponent to leverage the aspect of profit distribution to unsettle the foundations of Circle: it rewrites reserve interest from "solely enjoyed by the issuer" to "ecological sharing," with the management only collecting management fees. This enticing profit-sharing model for channels and partner institutions is regarded by CoinShares as the most powerful direct shock to USDC's business model thus far. However, as of July 15, 2026, this impact remains at the expectation level, with key variables all still undecided—the specific technical implementation details of Open USD, the precise composition of reserve assets, how to price and settle management fees, and what attitudes different regulatory jurisdictions will adopt, have yet to be disclosed and should not be fabricated. Until these gaps are filled with real data, the market can only focus on three main lines: first, whether Open USD will officially present a scheme as predicted in the second half of 2026 and clearly disclose its structure and fee model; second, whether Circle will be forced to rewrite the old script of "interest belongs to the issuer" in its profit-sharing strategy, offering higher returns to channels and ecological partners; and third, how trading platforms, payment networks, and institutional funds controlling the gateways will reassess their positions between USDC and Open USD, these variables, soon to be unveiled, will ultimately determine whether Open USD poses a genuine threat to rewrite the rules of the dollar-pegged token market or merely creates a brief ripple in reports and public opinion.
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