Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher
Visa announced its Q3 2026 financial results, with net revenue of $11.6 billion, a 14% year-over-year increase, and quarterly payment volume exceeding $4 trillion for the first time in the company's history. However, the market's intense scrutiny was focused on the statements about stablecoins during the earnings call.
Visa announced joining the Open Standard alliance, supporting the new stablecoin OpenUSD, while emphasizing it will maintain a multi-currency, multi-chain strategy. By examining the product structure of the Visa Stablecoin Platform, the membership controversies of the OUSD alliance, and the concentration data of the stablecoin market, what exactly is VISA planning?
The Key Behind the Earnings Report
On July 28, 2026, Visa announced its Q3 2026 financial results. Net revenue was $11.6 billion, with earnings per share of $3.32. CEO Ryan McInerney stated both figures exceeded the company's expectations. On a constant currency basis, payment volume grew 10% year-over-year, and the number of processed transactions also increased 10% to 72 billion. Cross-border transaction volume, payment transaction volume, and processed transactions all maintained double-digit growth, with cross-border being consistently Visa's highest-margin segment.
The other side of the report was less rosy. Visa also disclosed ongoing job cuts, primarily in technology and product teams, with $563 million in GAAP severance charges recorded for the quarter. Concurrently, the company repurchased $4.9 billion in stock and paid $1.3 billion in dividends. While raising its full-year outlook, the company clearly redirected the freed-up resources towards three areas: AI, stablecoins, and agency commerce.
In other words, this was an earnings report exchanging headcount reduction for investment capacity. The real focus should be on where the freed-up resources are being redirected.
From Blockchain to Application Layer: Visa Positions Itself as the Foundation for Stablecoins
During the call, Visa described its stablecoin strategy as full-stack. The company stated it has investments at every layer of stablecoins—from blockchain, issuance, wallets, and infrastructure all the way to the application layer. The progress this quarter focused on the issuance and application ends. The action on the issuance end was joining the Open Standard alliance, which plans to issue OpenUSD—a new stablecoin designed for global capital flows.
What the Visa Stablecoin Platform is Actually Selling
On the application end lies the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP). This product was launched in mid-July, positioned to enable financial institutions, fintech companies, and crypto-native institutions to gain stablecoin capabilities—including deposit, custody, and redemption—through a Visa-managed environment, starting with support for OUSD. The earnings call provided a more complete functional outline: this platform allows partners to settle with Visa using stablecoins, obtain on-chain wallet-as-a-service infrastructure, and transfer funds between fiat and stablecoins.
The Subtle Undertone of Pismo and Tokenized Deposits
Even less discussed than stablecoins is another thread. Visa stated the platform will integrate with payment infrastructure company Pismo to provide tokenized deposit support for financial institutions, with plans to introduce third-party tokenized deposit infrastructure providers in the future.
Tokenized deposits are technically similar to stablecoins but are two different things financially: one is the on-chain representation of a bank liability, the other is a monetary substitute issued by a non-bank institution. By accommodating both, Visa is leaving room for both the banking system and the crypto system. Whichever side wins, it has already placed its bet.
VISA's Declaration of Pricing Power
During the earnings call, analysts asked the most pointed question directly: Will OpenUSD compete with established issuers like Circle and Tether?
McInerney's answer was that Visa will maintain a multi-currency, multi-chain approach moving forward; the company's role is not to pick winners. He added that stablecoins have not yet achieved widespread scale beyond a few use cases, and one of the proven use cases that has emerged is the U card.
The concentration in the stablecoin market is extremely high: as of late July 2026, the total stablecoin market cap was approximately $303.2 billion, with USDT at $184.2 billion and USDC at $73.4 billion. The overall market cap even contracted slightly by 3.3% over the past 90 days. In a stagnant market where two issuers control the vast majority of circulating supply, the cost for any new entrant to capture share on their own is exorbitantly high. But if you don't issue a coin and only handle the settlement, exchange, and wallet layers, whose market share is larger becomes irrelevant, because every transaction in and out must pass through Visa.
140 Founding Partners, Yet Some Companies Learned of Their Membership from the News
ARK analyst Lorenzo Valente made an observation in an X post on July 29th: OUSD partner commitments are looking more like soft letters of intent than strategic bets. His point is that supporting OUSD is entirely different from actually committing distribution channels, balance sheets, and resources to ensure its success.
This observation has a factual basis. OUSD is formed by a founding alliance of over 140 companies, spanning payments, banking, technology, and crypto industries. Members include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, Google, Shopify, Coinbase, and Ripple. The founding CEO of Open Standard is Zach Abrams, CEO of Bridge, a Stripe company. Its differentiated design has three points: zero-cost minting and redemption, no supply cap, and reserve returns, after deducting management fees, flowing almost entirely back to partners. The token is expected to launch later in 2026, initially on the Solana blockchain.
The problem lies with the list itself. Shortly after the announcement, a series of denials emerged: Samsung stated it had not engaged in formal discussions with Open Standard and was unclear about its intended role; Dunamu, Shinhan Bank, and K Bank said they had received inquiries but had not approved participation. Some companies even learned of their inclusion from media reports. The same report also mentioned Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire criticizing the alliance model for stablecoins as structurally prone to failure.
More notable are the names absent from the list: the three largest USD stablecoin issuers—Circle, Tether, and PayPal—are not among the partners. It is too early to say an alliance missing the current leaders, with members publicly denying participation, represents industry consensus. It more closely resembles a collectively signed statement of watchful waiting.
Visa's signature on this list and its statement during the earnings call, "We don't pick winners," are two sides of the same coin.
Those Who Don't Pick Winners Bet on the Channel Itself
Is Visa joining OpenUSD a threat to Circle and Tether?
Not in the short term. An alliance with no exclusive commitment, where members are denying their involvement, poses relatively low threat. On the other hand, from Visa's perspective, the cost of this signature is minimal, trading for a position and voice in the stablecoin narrative without bearing responsibility for its success or failure. This is an option, not a bet.
Over a longer timeframe, the only real variable is when Visa begins to materially steer its merchant network and issuer relationships towards a specific stablecoin. Until then, regardless of how fierce the competition among issuers becomes, Visa plays the role of an observer. Therefore, for Visa, picking winners is not important; what matters is that the eventual winner must move its goods through its channel. It bets on controlling the channel itself.
