Open USD Stablecoin Backed by Visa, Mastercard and 140 Firms at Launch

Crypto News

A consortium of more than 140 companies, led by Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase, has unveiled Open Standard, a new alliance that plans to issue a dollar-pegged stablecoin called Open USD (OUSD) later this year. The group frames the token as an open, low-cost settlement layer built for high transaction volumes, letting businesses mint and redeem OUSD without fees or volume limits. Founding chief executive Zach Abrams argued that existing stablecoins, while useful, do not give companies a token system aligned with their commercial interests. The launch lands as banks, fintechs and crypto firms race to expand stablecoin rails for payments, settlement and trading activity.

The most disruptive feature is economic rather than technical. Under the model, earnings generated by the reserve assets backing OUSD will be distributed to participating businesses after a management fee is deducted for operating costs. That reverses the incumbent playbook, in which issuers park customer dollars in short-term Treasuries and keep the interest income themselves. By handing most reserve yield back to network partners, Open Standard is directly targeting the profit structure that has made USDC and USDT so lucrative. Participants share revenue in proportion to how widely they help distribute the token, giving each a direct economic stake in OUSD adoption.

The founding roster spans finance, technology and crypto. Payments names include Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover, while BlackRock, Bank of New York Mellon and Standard Chartered represent traditional finance. Google, Shopify and IBM join from the technology side, and the crypto contingent features Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, MetaMask, Ripple and Galaxy. Payments firm Stripe also signed on, with its technology and business president signaling hopes that OUSD becomes the default stablecoin for Stripe’s enterprise clients. Blockchain network Tempo says OUSD will be issued natively on its chain from day one, supporting payments, liquidity provision, decentralized-exchange and DeFi use, though Open Standard has not confirmed exclusivity.

Markets reacted sharply. Shares of Circle, the issuer of the second-largest dollar stablecoin USDC, fell as much as 16% as investors reassessed the competitive landscape. Investment bank William Blair called the sell-off an overreaction, reaffirming an Outperform rating and framing the dip as a buying opportunity. Analysts argued Circle retains a durable first-mover advantage, pointing to roughly $74 billion in USDC market value, deep liquidity and its Circle Payments Network. They were skeptical of OUSD’s core pitch, noting Circle already offers similar economic incentives to partners and likening the alliance to earlier payment consortiums that struggled to dislodge established incumbents.

Industry leaders weighed in quickly. Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire responded that USDC remains the most trusted, widely adopted and institution-ready dollar stablecoin, pledging continued investment in banking, payments and capital-markets integrations that let partners share in network growth. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong endorsed the initiative publicly, writing that it was time to modernize the financial system. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino struck a wry tone, welcoming OUSD with a comment that a second player had formally entered the arena. The rapid exchange of remarks underscored how seriously incumbents are treating a venture that has yet to go live.

Operational details remain partly open. Governance sits with Open Standard, an independent entity whose board is drawn from partner representatives, a structure the group describes as neutral rather than controlled by any single company. Businesses will be able to use OUSD as a core payment asset and receive technical integration support. One point of confusion is the ticker: OUSD is already used by Origin Dollar, an existing yield-bearing stablecoin, and the two projects are unrelated. For now, no reserve attestation, firm launch date beyond ‘later this year’ or full network specification has been disclosed, leaving key questions unanswered ahead of go-live.

Read together, these developments mark a decisive shift: stablecoins are moving from crypto-trading instruments toward core payment infrastructure contested by the largest names in finance. Our reading is that the battle is now over reserve yield, not price stability, and OUSD’s revenue-sharing model directly attacks incumbents’ margins. Context matters, though. COINOTAG’s aggregate data shows the Fear and Greed Index at 11, deep in Extreme Fear, Bitcoin dominance at 69.7% and total crypto market capitalization near $1.69 trillion — a risk-averse backdrop for the broader altcoin market. In that climate, distribution muscle from Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock, not token mechanics alone, will likely decide whether OUSD scales.