A group of financial and crypto companies is building a new dollar stablecoin with a structure that lets its backers pocket yield from the reserves backing the token, Cointelegraph reported.
Visa and Mastercard are among the supporters, alongside unnamed crypto firms. The project represents an attempt to compete with Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, which by market data rank as the two largest stablecoins.
The mechanics matter here. Most stablecoins hold reserves (dollars, short-term treasury instruments) in custody to back each token issued. That reserve pile generates yield as interest accrues. In Tether and USDC's models, those earnings flow to the issuers themselves. The new consortium wants to structure its stablecoin so that reserve yield stays distributed among the backing companies rather than concentrating at one issuer.
That incentive design could matter for adoption among financial institutions and payment networks. If Visa and Mastercard see a direct financial benefit from the stablecoin's reserve performance, they have a reason to integrate it into their rails beyond pure optionality. For smaller backers, the yield-sharing model offers a revenue stream that a minority stake in a single-issuer stablecoin wouldn't provide.
The catch: distributed ownership and yield-sharing arrangements tend to move slower than centralized issuance. Tether and USDC can deploy capital, upgrade their peg mechanisms, and respond to redemptions without consensus. A consortium model requires coordination. That friction could matter during redemption spikes or market stress, when speed of reserve deployment often determines whether a peg holds.
Neither the timeline for launch nor the specific reserve composition was disclosed by Cointelegraph. The lack of concrete details makes it hard to assess whether the new stablecoin would meet the reserve transparency standards that Circle has set with USDC attestations, or the scrutiny that regulators are likely to apply to any payment network entering stablecoin backing.
Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) command market-cap positions that reflect years of embedded usage and deep liquidity across exchanges and DeFi protocols. Cointelegraph's reporting doesn't indicate whether the new consortium has plans to bootstrap liquidity incentives, integrate with major venue operators, or offer feature advantages that would justify switching costs for existing USDT and USDC holders.