A consortium led by credit card giants Visa (NYSE: $V) and Mastercard (NYSE: $MA) have launched a new global stablecoin.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose price is pegged to an underlying asset, typically the U.S. dollar.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: $COIN) is also part of the group that has launched a new stablecoin aimed at increasing adoption of the digital tokens.
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The venture, called “Open Standard,” brings together more than 140 businesses for the stablecoin network and will issue a new U.S.-dollar pegged stablecoin called “Open USD.”
The new stablecoin will help to address many of the issues and concerns that businesses encounter when scaling stablecoin adoption, according to the consortium.
“Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that’s open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests,” said the Open Standard group in a news release.
Moving forward, businesses will be able to mint and redeem the Open USD stablecoin without any cost and limits on volumes to help them build for scale.
U.S. President Donald Trump last year signed the GENIUS Act into law, setting federal rules and guidelines for stablecoins. The Open USD token follows those rules, says the group.
Stablecoins are currently used mostly to facilitate trading in other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) and are still not widely used to send or receive payments.
Still, stablecoins are the fastest growing areas of the crypto sector. The stablecoin market is estimated at $313 billion U.S., with forecasts that it could reach $2 trillion U.S. by 2030.
The most widely used stablecoins currently are Circle Internet Group’s (NYSE: $CRCL) USD Coin (CRYPTO: $USDC) and privately held Tether (CRYPTO: $USDT).
