Oliveros: If Open USD Scales, the Impact Will Reach Venezuela Directly

• For Oliveros, more competition translates into remittances, transfers, and access to cheaper digital dollars.
• Open USD is the project of a consortium of 140 companies aiming to dethrone USDT and USDC.

The announcement of a new stablecoin called Open USD (OUSD) and its implications in terms of competition in that sector of the cryptocurrency ecosystem could have a direct impact on the dynamics experienced in Venezuela with these digital assets.

This was considered by Venezuelan economist and business consultant Asdrúbal Oliveros, who stated that greater competition in the realm of stablecoins could be beneficial for citizens in that country.

In a post on his X account, Oliveros highlighted that the diversification of options in this market, starting from OUSD as a new competitor, would translate into remittances, transfers, and access to cheaper digital dollars for the population of the Caribbean country.

Essentially, OUSD could eliminate issuance and redemption costs for the platforms that adopt it and would redistribute the profits from its reserves directly to the ecosystem. This is due to the massive corporate backing that accompanies this stablecoin.

For Venezuela, this would mean that local fintechs, wallets, and P2P platforms could integrate a regulated and highly liquid digital dollar without passing on large corporate fees to users.

In practice, this would lower the cost of sending or receiving remittances from abroad, favoring operations compared to traditional options (such as fiat exchange houses) or other stablecoins. But of course, only if the new digital currency scales effectively, as Oliveros suggested.

But what is OUSD? It is a new stablecoin linked to the US dollar developed by the Open Standard organization. CriptoNoticias reported on June 30 that this digital currency will be backed by a consortium of more than 140 global corporations from the banking, technology, and payment sectors, including firms like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, Coinbase, and BlackRock.

The initiative is being developed exactly one year after the enactment of the Genius Law in the United States, a regulatory framework that facilitates institutional cooperation within the stablecoin ecosystem.

Open USD stands as a financial alternative seeking to challenge the leadership of USD Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), the most valued stablecoins, with market capitalizations of $184 billion and $73 billion, respectively.

However, it is not the only one. Currently, there are around 140 active dollar stablecoins in the market, all accumulating a capitalization that exceeds $312 billion, according to data from DeFiLlama.

Significant Operational Challenges for OUSD

Now, despite the initial optimism expressed by Oliveros regarding the reduction of transaction and remittance costs for Venezuela, the Open USD project still faces significant operational challenges.

Currently, the initiative, which has not yet been launched in the market, lacks critical components for its operation. This includes a fully defined legal issuer and a permanent CEO. Additionally, the historical track record of similar corporate consortia in the digital asset market shows, in Oliveros' words, poor results.

This view is shared by Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle Internet, the issuing company of USDC. He critically analyzed the OUSD project and explained that there are three key elements that could work against this stablecoin, such as the fact that a consortium is behind it. In his opinion, large financial groups rarely scale.

Thus, the viability of the benefit of OUSD for Venezuelan citizens will depend exclusively on whether the currency can effectively consolidate the liquidity and adoption levels necessary to become a real alternative to the dominant options.

This is considering that USDT is the most used stablecoin in Venezuela for payments, savings, investment, value refuge, and even as a reference rate for the dollar.

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