Several major South Korean companies say they were listed as members of the new Open USD (OUSD) stablecoin consortium without formally agreeing to join, raising questions about the credibility of the project’s membership claims.
Chosun Biz reported that multiple firms named in Open Standard’s announcement said they had no official discussions with the issuer and only discovered their inclusion after local media coverage. Open Standard unveiled OUSD on June 30, describing it as a U.S. dollar-backed payment and settlement stablecoin slated for launch later this year and saying roughly 140 financial and payments firms worldwide would participate — including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google and a host of South Korean companies.
Korean firms named by Open Standard included:
- Samsung Electronics
- Dunamu
- Shinhan Financial Group
- KakaoBank
- K Bank
- Hyundai Card
- KB Kookmin Card
- BC Card
- Hana Card
- Samsung Card
- Woori Card
- NH Nonghyup Card
- Hanwha
Several of those companies pushed back. Samsung Electronics told Chosun Biz it had not held formal consultations with Open Standard and did not know what role it would have in the consortium. Dunamu, Shinhan Financial Group and K Bank said they had only been approached about potential interest and had replied they would review any proposal. One firm said it learned it had been listed only after seeing domestic news reports and that its response to Open Standard had merely been that it would consider participation if the project progressed.
Open Standard has described OUSD as a cooperative network rather than a decentralized autonomous organization or an equity-backed venture. It says participating firms will be able to mint OUSD by depositing U.S. dollars into Open Standard’s reserve account and redeem tokens by returning them to the issuer, without fees or volume limits on minting and redemption. The issuer also says reserve income from assets backing OUSD will be distributed to participating partners after operating costs — a revenue model positioned as different from issuers such as Tether and Circle, which retain reserve earnings.
Following Open Standard’s announcement, some voices in South Korea’s digital asset industry suggested OUSD could become a challenger to market leaders Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. But the recent denials from a number of named Korean firms underscore that the consortium’s membership appears to be fluid and, at least in some cases, not yet formalized.
Open Standard’s timeline calls for the stablecoin to launch later this year; questions over confirmed membership may complicate plans as the project moves forward.
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