HTX Ventures' latest research report interprets Open USD: How the yields and rules of stablecoins are redistributed after technology is opened up

Recently, Huobi HTX's global investment department HTX Ventures released the latest research report titled "Open Infrastructure and Closed Financial Tracks: Open USD, Income Redistribution, and Participant Governance," analyzing the changes in revenue distribution, channel relationships, and governance structures in the stablecoin industry surrounding the Open USD (OUSD) announced on June 30, 2026. The report points out that blockchain has established an open, global, and programmable technological infrastructure, and the next phase of industry evolution will depend on the power dynamics and interest distribution among various participants. The technical layer's openness has been completed, while the economic layer's openness is just beginning.

Economic Structure on Open Technology

The use cases for stablecoins have extended from crypto trading to cross-border payments, corporate fund management, and backend settlement for financial institutions. Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot reached an annualized operating scale of approximately $7 billion by April 2026 and expanded to nine blockchains; Swift is preparing to trial tokenized deposits for cross-border payments with 17 banks; Project Agorá has validated that tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized central bank reserves can achieve multi-currency atomic settlement on a shared platform.

In contrast to the rapid advancement of the technical layer, the distribution of economic rights remains unchanged. After users hand over dollars to issuers, the issuers mint an equivalent amount of stablecoins and allocate reserves to cash, short-term government bonds, or money market funds, with the reserve income belonging to the issuers. The actual operation of stablecoins requires exchanges and wallets to provide user access, payment companies to connect merchants and enterprises, banks to provide accounts, fiat withdrawals and deposits, and foreign exchange liquidity, custodians to safeguard reserve assets, and market makers to maintain secondary market depth. These institutions bear the costs of system access, compliance, liquidity, and customer service, currently relying mainly on bilateral commercial contracts with issuers for revenue sharing, with bargaining power highly dependent on their own user scale.

Three-Tier Institutional Design of OUSD

According to the plan published by Open Standard, enterprises can mint and redeem OUSD for free and without limits. Open Standard charges a small management fee from reserve income, with the remainder planned to be distributed to partners adopting and promoting OUSD, and some members will also enter the partner board to participate in network decision-making. The announced partner list includes over 140 companies, covering Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, and several banks and payment institutions.

HTX Ventures breaks down this design into three shifts:

1. From access fees to subsidy distribution: Stablecoin contracts can be deployed quickly, but the real costs are customer acquisition, liquidity, regional compliance, and fiat channels. OUSD aims to use reserve income to compensate for these long-term investments;

2. From bilateral negotiations to network revenue sharing: Existing channel revenue sharing relies on negotiations between issuers and large platforms. OUSD hopes to include more participants in a unified revenue framework, allowing small and medium payment companies, regional banks, and vertical wallets to share income based on their business contributions;

3. From issuer governance to participant governance: Some partners entering the board allows institutions bearing business and regulatory responsibilities to gain corresponding discussion rights.

OUSD is expected to launch later in 2026. It is important to distinguish that it uses the same OUSD code as the Origin Dollar launched by Origin Protocol in 2020, but they are not the same product.

From Plan to Operation, Key Lies in Execution Details

HTX Ventures believes that the success of this design will depend on several specific aspects. First is the revenue sharing rules; distributing based on balances is simple but favors institutions with strong financial capabilities, while calculating based on transaction volume may be distorted by internally allocated activities. A more reasonable mechanism needs to consider balance retention, actual payments, new customers, and regional compliance investments simultaneously. The value of governance arrangements also depends on what the board can decide, rather than how many institutions are on the list.

More fundamentally, there is a gap between institutions joining the alliance and migrating core businesses. Participation may only involve brand support or technical testing, or it may include wallet access, providing liquidity, and opening fiat channels. What truly determines network value are stable balances, real payments, market-making depth, and smooth redemptions.

Revenue Distribution Patterns in the Industry Chain Face Adjustment

If the revenue-sharing model leads to sustained payment volumes, the space for issuers to exclusively enjoy reserve interest margins will narrow, and other issuers will face higher channel costs. Exchanges, wallets, and payment companies that control real users, liquidity, and payment scenarios may shift from being distribution tools for stablecoins to participants in revenue distribution and governance systems.

The situation for banks is dual-faceted. When enterprises convert part of their transactional balances into stablecoins, deposits and cross-border transfer income may be affected, but stablecoins still require reserve custody, fiat withdrawals and deposits, and foreign exchange liquidity. Large banks can convert their account and regulatory capabilities into network services. The direct impact on card organizations is relatively limited; their value lies not only in moving funds but also in transaction authorization, fraud management, and global merchant acceptance. Clearing and data services will differentiate, with fees relying on closed records and repetitive reconciliations likely declining, while services related to security and liability will increase.

The coordinates for evaluating such networks are also updated. Supply scale is just the starting point; the distribution of circulating balances, redemption timeliness, and secondary market spreads reflect asset quality, while how many real businesses partners migrate, whether revenue-sharing rules can be executed, and how the board handles member disagreements will test the actual operational capabilities of the alliance.

Next Phase of Competitive Dimensions

The questions raised by Open USD go beyond stablecoins themselves: when banks, payment companies, exchanges, asset management institutions, and custodians actually provide assets, customers, liquidity, and compliance capabilities, how will profits and control in the value chain be distributed?

This change is more likely to occur in middle and back-office infrastructures such as payments, settlements, liquidity, and institutional interoperability. Such businesses require the participation of multiple institutions, as a single platform finds it difficult to independently provide complete customer coverage, regional licenses, fiat channels, and counterparty networks; while institutions, while sharing infrastructure, also wish to retain control over core businesses, customer data, and risk management. Therefore, alliance governance and revenue sharing become the commercial conditions for establishing cross-institution networks.

HTX Ventures believes that in this direction, competition in stablecoins will shift from issuance scale and on-chain liquidity to who contributes network value, who shares infrastructure revenue, who retains customers and data, and who decides operational rules. The next phase of financial infrastructure may not be entirely decentralized but is more likely to shift from single company control to a model where regulated participants connect and benefit together, implementing layered governance on significant matters. As a professional investment research institution focused on payment infrastructure and institutional settlement networks, HTX Ventures will continue to track this process, observing how the redistribution of income, customers, and rules after technological migration affects the actual direction of the industry.

About HTX Ventures

HTX Ventures is the global investment department of Huobi HTX, integrating investment, incubation, and research to identify the best and brightest teams worldwide. As an industry pioneer, HTX Ventures has over 11 years of experience in blockchain development, specializing in identifying cutting-edge technologies and emerging business models in the field. To drive growth within the blockchain ecosystem, we provide comprehensive support for projects, including financing, resources, and strategic advice.

HTX Ventures currently supports over 300 projects across multiple blockchain sectors, with some high-quality projects already trading on Huobi HTX. Additionally, as one of the most active FOF funds, HTX Ventures invests in 30 top global funds and collaborates with leading blockchain funds such as Polychain, Dragonfly, Bankless, Gitcoin, Figment, Nomad, Animoca, and Hack VC to jointly build the blockchain ecosystem. Visit us.