Key Takeaways
More than 140 companies, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, Google, BNY, and Ripple, joined Open Standard to launch Open USD, a shared stablecoin.
Open USD shares most of the income from its reserves with the businesses that use it, and businesses can mint and redeem it with no fees or volume limits.
Circle shares fell more than 8% to a four-month low, as the market read the new stablecoin as a direct threat to USDC.
More than 140 companies, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, Google, BNY, and Ripple, have joined a group called Open Standard to launch Open USD, a shared stablecoin built for the global financial system. Visa's head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, announced the company's role on June 30. The pitch is a stablecoin that no single company controls.
How Open USD is different
Most stablecoins keep the interest earned on their reserves. Circle and Tether sit on tens of billions of dollars in Treasuries and pocket the yield. Open USD flips that. According to The Block, businesses can mint and redeem the token with no fees or volume limits, and most of the reserve income flows back to the companies that use it after a small management fee. The token will be run by an independent organization with a board of partner members rather than a single issuer.
Why it rattled Circle
The market read it as a direct threat to Circle's USDC. Circle shares fell more than 8% to a four-month low on the news, per CoinDesk. The launch lineup is hard to dismiss, with US Bank, Standard Chartered, DBS, Shopify, IBM, Anchorage Digital, MetaMask, Aave, Solana, and Polygon all signed on. Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams will serve as interim chief executive, and Open USD is set to go live natively on Solana later in 2026 before expanding to Stellar, Base, and Polygon.
The bigger shift
The model lands as stablecoin rules tighten. Open USD will have to meet the same bank-style oversight the GENIUS Act is bringing to stablecoin issuers, and it joins a wave of regulated on-chain money that includes Anchorage's tokenized-deposit rails for banks. What is new is the ownership. For the first time, the companies moving the money, not a single issuer, are set to share what the float earns.
People Also Ask
What is Open USD?
Open USD (OUSD) is a dollar-backed stablecoin launched by Open Standard, a group of more than 140 companies including Visa, Coinbase, and BlackRock. It is governed by an independent board of partner members rather than a single issuer.
How is Open USD different from USDC?
Unlike USDC, Open USD shares most of the income earned on its reserves with the businesses that use it, and it lets them mint and redeem with no fees or volume limits.
Who is behind Open USD?
Launch partners include Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, Google, BNY, Standard Chartered, US Bank, Ripple, Solana, and Polygon, among more than 140 firms. Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams is interim CEO.
When does Open USD launch?
Open USD is expected to go live natively on Solana later in 2026, then expand to Stellar, Base, Polygon, and other chains.