Several major South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics and Dunamu, have publicly disputed their inclusion in the newly announced Open USD (OUSD) stablecoin consortium, claiming they never formally agreed to participate. The revelation casts doubt on the credibility of the project, which aims to challenge dominant stablecoins like USDT and USDC.
According to local reports, Open Standard introduced OUSD on June 30, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin scheduled for launch later this year, and listed around 140 global firms as consortium members—among them Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, and numerous Korean financial and tech giants. However, several of those Korean entities stated they had only been approached about potential interest and had not committed.
Samsung Electronics told Chosun Biz that “there were no official consultations” and the company does not know what role it would play. Dunamu, Shinhan Financial Group, and K Bank similarly said they only responded that they would review the proposal. An unnamed firm was quoted as being “perplexed” to see its name listed after merely indicating it would consider joining if the project progressed.
Open Standard’s model differs from existing issuers like Tether and Circle: consortium members can mint OUSD by depositing dollars and redeem without fees or volume limits, while reserve income is shared among partners after deducting operating costs. The company aims to create a cooperative network rather than a single-issuer stablecoin.
The dispute raises concerns about the project’s initial transparency and could slow its potential challenge to the $291 billion stablecoin market, currently led by Tether’s USDT ($184.3 billion) and Circle’s USDC ($73 billion).
