Today, Open Standard launched Open USD (OUSD). Visa, Mastercard, Google, and 70 more of the world’s largest financial institutions and payment companies are a part of the Open Standard, with Fireblocks as a key infrastructure partner. This is an inflection point: digital assets are becoming a crucial part of how value moves around the world, underpinning and transforming business critical payment flows.
The time to move is now
The window to capitalize on the stablecoin opportunity is short. The why and how are clear, and organizations that look to leapfrog ahead are moving quickly for two reasons.
First, the partners you already work with are now the ones building the infrastructure that puts stablecoins to work. For example, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, traditional competitors, are agreeing to settle value on the same asset and are joining the ecosystem to work through both the technical and operational details that stablecoin-based payments require at scale.
Second, stablecoins free capital and create new efficiencies:
- Issuing banks can collapse collateral requirements that is currently locked in reserve for card settlement.
- Acquiring banks and PSPs get same-day clearing on OUSD, freeing up working capital and enabling faster merchant payouts.
- Cross-border treasury movement gets faster and cheaper without the correspondent banking chain.
We are already seeing adoption, with quarterly stablecoin volume across key use cases within Fireblocks’ payment customers:
- $76B for B2B payments and AP/AR: businesses converting fiat to stablecoins to pay vendors and providers with stablecoins instead of wires
- $19B in merchant settlement: settling directly with merchants using stablecoins instead of card rails
- $13B in stablecoin payouts: direct payouts to creators, gig workers, and contractors
- And finally, $2B in issuer/acquirer settlement: settling between issuers and acquirers using stablecoins instead of correspondent banking.
The infrastructure needs are clear
Fireblocks is powering over 100 banks and 300 payment organizations that are using stablecoin to grow and create capital efficiencies. We have seen where the friction shows up as organizations get started, and know what’s needed:
- A strong foundation for pay-ins, pay-outs, and stablecoin accounts. Wallets and orchestration need to be built for the intricacies stablecoin-based flows while integrating into your existing business.
- Blockchain agnostic. OUSD, like other stablecoins, will live on several blockchains. Your infrastructure needs to support all blockchains and digital currencies to align to your use cases.
- Institutional-grade security and compliance. Travel rule, sanctions screening, and KYC need to be composable by workflow and transaction direction, backed by institutional-grade security that protects your funds.
- Seamless integration into existing operations. Successful stablecoin implementations tie into your existing systems and integrations.
Why Fireblocks
As an infrastructure partner for Open Standard, we have already started building with the core tenants of Fireblocks as an integral part of supporting OUSD: security, compliance, and scale global businesses rely on. We’ve been powering the financial ecosystem as it adopted stablecoin use cases at every stage, with Western Union, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, MoneyGram, Checkout.com, Worldpay and others standardizing on Fireblocks.
Take Moneygram: they initially started by using digital assets for their internal treasury, then moved to stablecoin issuance, and now operate treasury, accounts receivable, and consumer wallets leveraging Fireblocks. The infrastructure decision is the first, and most strategic part of your digital asset journey.
Open USD goes live later this year, and now is the time to turn your stablecoin strategy into production-ready solutions. Let’s talk about how Fireblocks can partner with you today.
