Open Standard launched Open USD on Wednesday across Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo blockchains, introducing a stablecoin backed by Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, Shopify, and Coinbase that distributes equity rewards to partners based on network growth rather than extracting fees.
The launch marks the entry of a major alternative into a $300 billion stablecoin market dominated by Tether’s USDT ($143 billion in circulation) and Circle’s USDC ($74 billion). Open Standard, founded with 140+ partners in June 2026, has expanded to over 200 companies including UBS, SBI Holdings, and Jeeves.
Zach Abrams, CEO of Open Standard, frames the project as fundamentally different from existing stablecoins. “We want to be the most useful stablecoin, the same way the U.S. dollar is useful. Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We’re building money,” Abrams said.
Equity Model Replaces Fee Extraction
Open USD’s core mechanism diverges from competitors. Five founding partners (Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, Visa) each hold equal initial equity stakes and have committed over $1 billion in aggregate liquidity. Rather than earning special revenue shares, founding partners earn rewards under the same framework as all other partners: based on OUSD supply generation and transaction activity on the network.
“The overwhelming majority of our cap table is going to be distributed back to founders and non-founders based on how they help grow the network,” Abrams said. Equity distribution will occur over 4 to 5 years. Partners meeting minimum thresholds can earn equity based on their contributions to OUSD supply and transaction volume.
Open USD eliminates minting and burning fees entirely, a structural difference from USDC and USDT. Abrams rejected characterizations of Open Standard as a consortium, stating that management runs the company rather than decisions being made by committee.
Growth Projections and Use Cases
Dan Romero, Chief Business Officer of Tempo, projected rapid adoption on that blockchain. Romero expects $1 billion in OUSD on Tempo within the next few months, $10 billion during 2027, and potentially exceeding $100 billion over several years.
Abrams identified card settlement, foreign exchange, and cross-border payments as initial use cases. He articulated a decade-long vision in which OUSD reaches hundreds of trillions of dollars in transaction volume annually.
“When are stablecoins successful? It’s when they recede into the background and just become a core part of your mom’s bank account,” Abrams said. “Each of these folks is going to lean in and hold OUSD on their balance sheet, or hold OUSD onchain, or help market-make, or, in whatever use case makes the most sense for them.”
Competitive Positioning
The June announcement of Open Standard’s founding partners triggered market concern that major USDC backers were supporting a competing stablecoin. Abrams noted that stablecoin adoption will be determined by demand rather than by Open Standard’s preferences.
“It’s purely going to be driven by demands from the network, and I can tell you the network already demands other stablecoins,” Abrams said.
Abrams previously co-founded and led Bridge, which Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2024. Bridge had issued a euro-backed token for Revolut, signaling prior experience in non-dollar stablecoin issuance.
