Visa, Mastercard and others seek Brazilian antitrust clearance for stablecoin joint venture

Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Stripe and Shopify have notified Brazil's antitrust authority, the Cade (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica), about the creation of a joint venture tied to the issuance of a new stablecoin, a move that puts some of the world's largest payments, crypto and e-commerce companies under the scrutiny of Brazil's competition regulator.

The deal appears in Notice No. 744, published in Brazil's official gazette, the Diário Oficial da União, this Thursday (1st), and is being processed under case number 08700.009379/2026-85.

The publication does not mean the Cade has already approved the deal. Under Brazilian law, joint ventures that meet the thresholds for mandatory notification must first undergo review by the regulator, which assesses potential effects on competition before the deal can be completed.

The deal is linked to Open Standard, a company set up this year by Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa to develop Open USD, or OUSD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. The five companies are described by Open Standard itself as founding partners, and they take part in the governance of the new structure.

OUSD officially went live on 30 September, a day before the Brazilian notice was published. The asset is issued by Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company acquired by Stripe, and already runs on the Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo networks. Reserves are held through structures linked to BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY, with monthly attestations planned.

A stablecoin born already connected to giants

Open Standard says more than 200 financial institutions, fintechs, banks and global companies have already joined the initiative. These include Itaú and Bradesco, as well as names such as BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, BBVA, DBS, Mercado Pago, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Bitso. Being part of this network, however, does not mean these companies are shareholders in the joint venture or issuers of the stablecoin.

The model attempts to set OUSD apart from traditional stablecoins not only through infrastructure but also through revenue sharing. Partners that help expand the token's supply and activity may receive rewards tied to network usage and, in some cases, even equity in Open Standard.

The founding companies themselves take on different roles in this distribution. Mastercard offers API or portal integration for buying, selling, transfers, settlement and wallets. Coinbase offers 1:1 conversion, custody, trading, payments and financial services. Visa, meanwhile, has integrated OUSD into its Visa Stablecoin Platform, geared towards operations such as fiat on- and off-ramps, wallets and settlement.

Stripe has built the currency into its own infrastructure and now allows businesses to receive, hold, send and spend OUSD, as well as use it for card issuance, treasury and global payments. The company says the stablecoin can be minted or redeemed one-to-one with the dollar with no minting or burning fee.

For Visa and Mastercard, the deal reinforces a push that was already under way before Open USD. Visa launched its own platform in July to help banks, fintechs and payments companies create, move and manage stablecoins, starting precisely with OUSD.

Mastercard, for its part, announced in June that it was expanding its settlement infrastructure to include regulated stablecoins, as well as intraday operations on weekends and holidays.

The joint venture's formal appearance on the Cade's radar comes, then, at a time when stablecoins are moving beyond their main use as a trading instrument on exchanges and starting to compete for space in areas such as international payments, inter-institution settlement, cards and cash management.

In Brazil, the competition authority's review is one more step for the structure bringing together Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Stripe and Shopify. The Cade may approve the deal without restrictions, impose conditions, or block it if it identifies risks to competition.

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