Visa, Mastercard, and 140+ Firms Launch Open USD Stablecoin

A coalition of more than 140 companies has unveiled Open USD (OUSD), a new dollar-pegged stablecoin built to challenge the economics that have made Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT so profitable. The initiative is organized under a new independent entity called Open Standard, led by founding CEO Zach Abrams, co-founder of the stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, which Stripe acquired in 2024.

A Different Economic Model

Traditional stablecoin issuers generate revenue by parking reserves in short-term U.S. Treasuries and keeping the yield for themselves. Open USD flips that model, distributing most reserve income back to the businesses that mint, hold, and circulate the token, minus a management fee retained by Open Standard. The design rests on three principles:

• Zero-cost scale — no minting or redemption fees, and no artificial volume caps
• Shared earnings — partners collect reserve yield instead of a single issuer
• Collaborative governance — an independent board of partner companies sets direction, rather than one controlling entity

Who's Backing It

The founding partner list cuts across payments, banking, and crypto infrastructure. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Stripe anchor the payments side, while BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, and U.S. Bank represent traditional finance. Technology and commerce platforms Google, Shopify, and IBM have also signed on, alongside crypto-native firms Coinbase, Ripple, MetaMask, Aave, and Fireblocks. Solana, Stellar, Base, and Polygon are named as initial blockchain networks, with Solana confirmed for launch-day support.

Executives from several partners framed the launch as an infrastructure shift rather than a marketing exercise. Visa said it is applying its existing risk and operational standards to OUSD, while Stripe indicated the token will become the default stablecoin across its platform. DoorDash pointed to faster, cheaper cross-border payouts as a practical use case.

Market Reaction and Context

News of the launch pushed Circle's stock down as much as 15% in a single session, underscoring how directly Open USD threatens USDC's roughly $73 billion market share. The move also follows a broader industry pattern: Paxos already operates the similarly structured Global Dollar Network (USDG), and a separate consortium of European banks is developing the euro-denominated Qivalis stablecoin.

With the overall stablecoin market already exceeding $300 billion and projected by Citi to reach $4 trillion by 2030, Open USD's later-2026 rollout positions it as a direct test of whether shared governance and shared yield can outcompete the incumbent issuer model. (***)