Visa CEO Confirms Neutrality Toward Tether and USDC Amid Open USD Rollout

As reported by Crypto News, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney told the company's July 28 fiscal Q3 earnings call that Visa will remain neutral among stablecoin issuers and will not position Open USD above Tether's USDT or Circle's USDC. The statement frames the payments network as a multi-chain rail rather than a counterparty in any single token's adoption curve. For USDT, the readout is competitive validation: the largest card network in dollar settlement is treating OUSD as an optional venue, not a successor.

Visa's exposure profile

Visa disclosed stablecoin settlement activity at an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion as of March 2026. On July 16, the company launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform — a stack for banks, fintechs and crypto firms that initially provides minting, burning, storage and transfer access to Open USD inside a Visa-managed environment. The same platform is built to connect to existing settlement, linked-card and money-movement rails already processing USDC, USDT and other regulated tokens.

The structural distinction is material. Open Standard's consortium model — 140+ named participants including Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, Google and global banks — operates without disclosed capital, distribution or balance-sheet commitments from partners. ARK Invest researcher Lorenzo Valente characterized the support as "closer to a soft LOI than a strategic bet." Neither Visa nor Open Standard has published terms on token economics, partner liability or reserve-revenue distribution. Open USD remains pre-launch; Open Standard has not announced an initial circulating supply, transaction volume or exact launch date beyond "later in 2026." OUSD's stated model — fee- and limit-free mint/redeem, with most reserve revenue returned to distributing partners — diverges from the issuer-controlled structures that govern USDT and USDC.

Tether's balance sheet counterweight

Tether's Q2 2026 BDO attestation, released July 31, provides the offsetting data set. Net operating profit reached approximately $1.5 billion, sourced primarily from the US Treasury portfolio and repo operations. USDT supply expanded to roughly $184.6 billion by end-June, holding market share above 60%. Total assets stood at $187.7 billion against liabilities of $183.6 billion — excess reserves of approximately $4.1 billion.

Reserve composition shifted during the quarter. Tether reduced secured lending by about $2.4 billion and added 14 metric tons of physical gold, lifting gold holdings above 146 tons. Bitcoin exposure closed at approximately $5.8 billion after sharp price swings in both assets. The attestation also recorded 30 million net new users globally and continued progress on Tether's Big Four audit engagement.

What to track

• Open USD launch date and initial circulating supply from Open Standard.
• Visa Stablecoin Platform usage metrics and any USDC/USDT transaction volumes disclosed after July 16.
• Movement in Tether's $4.1 billion excess reserve buffer in the next attestation cycle.
• Any disclosed capital or distribution commitments from Open Standard partners — currently absent from public filings.