As traditional financial firms push into the commercial battleground of agentic payments, they're increasingly leaning into new blockchains and tokens, instead of relying on systems and products created years earlier by crypto startups and already widely adopted by long-time users.
The latest example comes from Visa, the world's largest card network, which last week introduced a platform to let banks and fintechs issue and move stablecoins. Visa chose to lead with Open USD, a new institution-backed token positioned as a rival to Circle's USDC.
The Visa Stablecoin Platform, or VSP, gives clients "a single place to mint, move and manage stablecoin operations," the company said in a blog post. It bundles on-chain wallet infrastructure with dual-control approvals, audit logging and allow lists, and is in beta with select clients.
The move is another sign that the incumbents who run the world's payment rails are determined to stay relevant, even dominant, as money starts to move as code on public blockchains. In an acknowledgement of just how crucial AI payments will be in the overall ecommerce landscape, and the accompanying realization that blockchains may be better equipped to handle the traffic, Visa is building its next act on the same crypto infrastructure once cast as a threat to it.
Open USD is closely connected to Stripe, another traditional payments firm, which has its own blockchain, Tempo. Visa has announced several integrations or partnerships with Stripe and Tempo.
"Networks are not announced into existence," Meng Liu, Principal Analyst at the consulting firm Forrester Research, wrote in a June 30 post. "Whether Open USD can become a SWIFT-like backbone for cross-border value transfer — or a Visa- and Mastercard-like acceptance network for programmable money — will depend on execution, governance, regulatory acceptance, liquidity, and ecosystem cooperation over time."
Open USD vs. Circle
Open USD (ticker OUSD) was launched in July by a consortium of more than 140 companies through an independent entity called Open Standard, according to TheNextWeb. Its founding CEO is Zach Abrams, co-founder of the Stripe-owned infrastructure firm Bridge. The list of backers reads like a roster of finance's biggest names: Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, Google, Shopify. There's also a few crypto firms, including the U.S. exchange Coinbase – notable since Coinbase was one of the original partners backing Circle's USD Coin, or USDC.
USDC, which is managed by the crypto firm Circle, is the second-biggest stablecoin by market capitalization, at $73 billion, behind Tether's No. 1 USDT, at $184 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
The pitch for OUSD is supposedly openness. Businesses can mint and redeem OUSD with no fees or volume caps, and interest earned on its reserves is shared among partner companies after a management fee, rather than pocketed by a single issuer. That said, the list of firms that can participate in creation and redemption of the coins is tightly controlled.
That structure is aimed squarely at Circle, whose USDC keeps the overwhelming majority of its reserve income. Circle's stock fell when the consortium's plans surfaced. But the "open" framing has a catch: OUSD is governed by a board of its consortium members, meaning effective control rests with the same large institutions, Visa included, that already dominate traditional finance.
Eco, a startup that helps developers build apps and products with stablecoins, wrote in an analysis updated this week that the "admission and removal of partners" is likely to "sit at the board level" of the Open Standard group. That structure could give a select few the power to choose "who joins, on what terms and how a partner can be removed for breach or insolvency."
Visa's AI gambit
For Visa, leading with OUSD marks a notable turn. In December 2025 the company launched USDC settlement for U.S. banks after a $3.5 billion pilot, tying itself to Circle's token. Now it is putting a competitor front and center.
It is also the latest in a run of blockchain and AI moves. Visa in April rolled out "Intelligent Commerce Connect" to route AI-agent purchases through its network, and last week it conceded that its card rails "weren't built" for the rapid, sub-penny payments AI agents are expected to make, pointing to blockchains as a fix.
Rivals are moving in parallel. Mastercard has launched an agentic payment system built on on-chain contracts, while Coinbase, Stripe, Amazon and Google have all shipped crypto-based tools that let AI agents pay their own way.
"With the Visa Stablecoin Platform, we're giving our clients a single place to mint, move and manage stablecoin operations with the controls, security and network reach they already expect from Visa," Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer said in last week's post.
In keeping with the tight controls, Visa said the new service is now available for beta testing with select clients. It did not give a timeline for a wider release.
(HOW AI WAS USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS PIECE: The first draft of this story was written on Claude Desktop using a custom blog-rewrite skill, supplemented with background research on Open USD and Visa's stablecoin history. I then used the Distro Reader MCP server to file the story as a draft to the DistroVerse web app. Facts were checked against Visa's original blog post and cited secondary sources before publication. I used ChatGPT with a custom project to create the story illustration.)