Korean firms dispute inclusion on Open USD partner list

Several South Korean companies listed among Open USD’s 140 partners said they had not entered formal agreements to participate in the stablecoin consortium.

A Samsung Electronics spokesperson said the firm had not received an official consultation and did not know what role, if any, it would play in the consortium. Executives at Dunamu, Shinhan Financial Group and K Bank said they were asked about interest and replied they would review the proposal; their names later appeared on the participant roster. An unnamed company official said the firm learned of its inclusion through domestic reporting and “had merely told Open Standard it would consider participation if the project progressed.”

Open Standard unveiled Open USD on June 30 as a shared stablecoin intended for cross-border money movement. The launch materials listed more than 140 companies across payments, banking, technology and crypto, and named firms such as Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Google, Coinbase, Stripe and Bybit, along with several Korean financial institutions.

The Open USD design allows free minting and redemption, shared-reserve economics and collaborative governance through the Open Standard framework. The launch materials highlighted the size of the partner roster in positioning the project relative to issuer-led stablecoins.

The gap between some companies’ accounts and the launch roster has raised questions about how the partner list was compiled and presented. Company representatives said there were no formal public confirmations from their organizations that matched the list shown at launch.

At the time of writing, Open Standard had not issued a public statement addressing the disputed listings.