Open Standard launched Open USD (OUSD) on September 30, 2026, deploying a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa across four blockchains: Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo. Within two hours, circulating supply reached $470 million, with over 90% concent...
"Importantly, most yield is shared directly with partners rather than being internalized by the stablecoin issuer." — Patrick Collison, CEO, Stripe
Open Standard launched Open USD (OUSD) on September 30, 2026, deploying a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa across four blockchains: Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo. Within two hours, circulating supply reached $470 million, with over 90% concentrated on Tempo, the Layer 1 blockchain Stripe and Paradigm built specifically for stablecoin payments. By October 2, supply stood at $668.5 million, backed by $588.2 million in U.S. Treasuries and $80.3 million in cash held at BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY Mellon.
OUSD enters a $313.2 billion stablecoin market where two incumbents — Tether (USDT) at $183.8 billion and Circle (USDC) at $74.5 billion — control 82.5% of total supply. At $668.5 million, OUSD represents 0.21% of sector supply. The token's competitive thesis rests not on existing market share but on distribution leverage: Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in payments in 2025, and Mastercard and Visa collectively move trillions more annually. Whether that distribution pipeline converts into stablecoin adoption remains the central unanswered question.
The launch also tests a new economic model. Unlike USDT and USDC, where issuers retain the majority of reserve yield, Open Standard passes reserve income back to distribution partners proportional to the supply and activity they generate. Partners can also earn equity in Open Standard itself. This structure inverts the traditional stablecoin value chain, paying distributors rather than charging them.
Open Standard was announced on June 30, 2026, with 140+ partners. By the September 30 launch, the partner count exceeded 200 financial institutions, fintechs, banks, and businesses.
OUSD went live at 12:00 UTC on September 30. Key launch-day metrics:
Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure firm Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2024, serves as the issuing entity. Zach Abrams, Bridge co-founder and previously of Square, Coinbase, and Brex, was named CEO of Open Standard.
Chainlink was selected as the official price oracle for OUSD, providing data feeds for lending, DEX, and derivatives applications across all four deployment chains.
OUSD runs natively on four blockchains, each serving a distinct use case:
| Chain | Purpose | Notable Feature | |-------|---------|-----------------| | Ethereum | DeFi collateral, lending | $147.7B stablecoin supply base | | Base | Coinbase ecosystem integration | Low fees, Coinbase-native distribution | | Solana | High-throughput payments | $16.4B existing stablecoin supply | | Tempo | Enterprise settlement, stablecoin-native L1 | 0.6-second finality, sub-$0.001 fees |
Tempo, which launched its mainnet on March 18, 2026, was built by Stripe and Paradigm on Reth with Simplex consensus. Transaction fees average below $0.001 — a company settling one million transactions per month would pay under $1,000 in network fees. Tempo eliminates the requirement to hold volatile native tokens for gas, letting participants pay fees in supported stablecoins.
Four integration paths provide on-ramps:
Businesses can mint and redeem OUSD 1:1 against the U.S. dollar at no cost through any of the four paths. Open Standard charges a small transaction fee, replacing the variable conversion fees typical in cross-border payments.
As of October 2, 2026, Bridge's transparency dashboard reported:
| Component | Amount | |-----------|--------| | Total OUSD outstanding | $668.5 million | | U.S. Treasuries | $588.2 million (88.0%) | | Cash | $80.3 million (12.0%) | | Collateralization ratio | 100% |
Reserves are held across three custodians: BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY Mellon. Monthly attestations are published at reserves.bridge.xyz/ousd.
The transparency dashboard carries a caveat: it states it is not an independent reserve attestation. Under the GENIUS Act, issuers with more than $50 billion in outstanding stablecoins must submit audited annual financial statements. Below that threshold, periodic reports certified by executives and examined by registered public accounting firms are required. At $668.5 million, OUSD falls into the lower tier.
By comparison, the earlier launch-day data showed a different reserve composition: $257.2 million in cash and $211.2 million in Treasuries/money-market funds at $468 million in supply. The shift toward a higher Treasury allocation within 48 hours suggests active reserve management as supply scaled.
OUSD's competitive thesis centers on inverting the stablecoin value chain. The traditional model, perfected by Tether, works as follows: the issuer collects dollars, buys Treasuries, earns yield, and retains the majority of that income. Tether reported $5.2 billion in net profit in H1 2025 from this model.
Open Standard's structure differs in three ways:
This model trades issuer margin for distribution velocity. The implicit bet: if Stripe's 2025 payment volume of $1.9 trillion (34% year-over-year growth, approximately $158 billion monthly) converts even a fraction into OUSD flows, the resulting supply growth would compensate for lower per-unit issuer revenue.
At current supply of $668.5 million, OUSD represents less than 0.3% of Stripe's monthly payment volume — an indicator of either early-stage traction or the scale of the conversion challenge ahead.
The stablecoin market as of September 30, 2026:
| Token | Supply | Market Share | |-------|--------|-------------| | USDT (Tether) | $183.8B | 58.7% | | USDC (Circle) | $74.5B | 23.8% | | USDS | $6.92B | 2.2% | | USDe | $4.90B | 1.6% | | DAI | $4.78B | 1.5% | | USD1 | $4.43B | 1.4% | | OUSD | $0.67B | 0.21% | | All others | $33.2B | 10.6% | | Total | $313.2B | 100% |
Source: DefiLlama, Bridge transparency dashboard
OUSD's primary competitive target appears to be USDC's position in regulated payments and consumer rails, where USDC holds an estimated 54% market share according to FXC Intelligence. USDC also leads in adjusted on-chain transaction volume, capturing 60% to 70% in multiple 2026 periods despite trailing USDT in supply.
Tether's dominance is structurally different. USDT's $183.8 billion supply concentrates on Ethereum ($147.7 billion across all stablecoins) and Tron ($94.1 billion, functioning primarily as a USDT transfer ledger). USDT's use as an inflation hedge in emerging markets — a function of its offshore accessibility — represents a market segment that most regulated stablecoins, including OUSD, are unlikely to penetrate.
Circle CEO has publicly downplayed OUSD's competitive threat, citing USDC's network effects. Coinbase, notably, supports both tokens — it holds a revenue-sharing agreement with Circle on USDC and serves as a founding partner of Open Standard.
Mastercard CPO Jorn Lambert framed the market differently: "In a multi-money world, the winners won't be those who bet on a single form of money."
United States: The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, provides a federal framework for payment stablecoins. It requires 1:1 reserve backing in high-quality assets (Treasuries, bank deposits, repos, government money market funds), regulatory approval from a state or federal regulator, and periodic reporting with executive certification. The Federal Reserve published its implementation rules in the Federal Register on September 29, 2026. OUSD's reserve structure — Treasuries and cash held at regulated custodians — appears consistent with GENIUS Act requirements.
European Union: OUSD faces a compliance gap. Bridge Building S.A., the issuing entity, holds Luxembourg authorization as an electronic money institution. However, as of October 1, 2026, OUSD is not registered as an e-money token (EMT) in the EU's MiCA register. Under MiCA Article 48, EU-regulated trading venues cannot legally list OUSD to European customers without the required notification, which requires at least 40 working days' notice. MiCA's transitional period ended on July 1, 2026, making full authorization mandatory.
This means European businesses cannot access OUSD through EU-regulated exchanges at launch — a notable gap for a token backed by companies with significant European operations.
Concentration risk: Over 90% of launch-day supply landed on Tempo, a chain with no independent validator set and limited track record. A single-chain concentration this extreme creates infrastructure dependency on Stripe's own network.
Coinbase's dual position: Coinbase earns revenue from its USDC partnership with Circle while simultaneously co-founding Open Standard. How this dual allegiance resolves as OUSD scales — if it scales — remains unclear.
Liquidity depth: Launch-day supply does not equal sustained demand. $470 million minted in two hours, primarily on Tempo, could reflect partner pre-commitments rather than organic market demand. The distinction matters for assessing real adoption velocity.
MiCA exclusion: The inability to operate in the EU at launch limits OUSD's addressable market by one of the world's largest economic blocs. The timeline for MiCA compliance has not been publicly disclosed.
Revenue model sustainability: Passing yield to partners works when interest rates are high. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields near current levels support the economics. A rate environment shift would compress the yield available for distribution, potentially reducing partner incentives.
Attestation vs. audit: The transparency dashboard explicitly states it is not an independent attestation. For a token backed by some of the world's largest payment companies, the absence of independent third-party audits at launch is a gap that invites scrutiny.
OUSD is the first stablecoin launched with simultaneous backing from a major payment processor (Stripe), both global card networks (Visa, Mastercard), a top crypto exchange (Coinbase), and a leading e-commerce platform (Shopify). The distribution infrastructure theoretically accessible through these partners is measured in trillions of dollars of annual payment volume.
The economic model — distributing yield rather than retaining it — addresses a structural complaint from payment companies about existing stablecoins: that issuers capture the economics while distributors bear the compliance and integration costs. Whether this model generates sufficient supply growth to compensate for lower issuer margins is untested at scale.
At $668.5 million in supply, OUSD is a rounding error in a $313.2 billion market. Its trajectory from here depends on a single variable: whether the 200+ partner institutions route meaningful payment volume through OUSD rather than continuing to use USDC, USDT, or traditional rails. The infrastructure exists. The incentive structure exists. The conversion has barely begun.