Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Open Standard launched its dollar stablecoin, Open USD, on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo.
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Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa are its first five founding investors, each receiving an equal initial equity stake.
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The founders have committed more than $1 billion to establish OUSD liquidity over the coming months.
Open Standard has launched Open USD, entering the competitive stablecoin market with a model designed to share more of the economics and ownership with companies that help the token grow.
OUSD went live Wednesday on Ethereum, Solana, Coinbase’s Base and Stripe-backed Tempo, CEO Zach Abrams told CoinDesk.
The launch follows its initial unveiling in June and brings together major payments and technology companies as founding investors. Open Standard is targeting banking, cross-border payments, card settlement, institutional trading and lending.
Five Founding Partners Commit to Liquidity
Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa are Open Standard’s first five founding partners and its only current investors.
Each received an equal initial equity stake, although the company did not disclose the size of the investments or ownership percentages.
Together, the founders have committed more than $1 billion to establish OUSD liquidity over the coming months. Abrams said their participation could include holding the token on balance sheets, maintaining onchain balances or supporting market-making.
That commitment represents planned liquidity support rather than confirmation that more than $1 billion of OUSD is already circulating.
Abrams expects the founding group to expand to approximately 10–12 companies. Open Standard also plans to establish a board composed of founders.
Open Standard initially announced more than 140 partners spanning payments, banking, cryptocurrency and technology.
Its network has since grown to more than 200 companies, according to Abrams. New participants include Japan’s SBI Holdings, Swiss bank UBS and fintech Jeeves.
The breadth of that network prompted questions about whether competing companies could govern the business effectively.
Abrams rejects describing Open Standard as a consortium. He said management runs the company, while a smaller founding group has ownership and governance responsibilities.
The wider partner network is connected through incentives tied to contributions to OUSD’s adoption.
Partners Can Earn Equity Through Usage
Open Standard’s central proposition concerns how stablecoin economics are distributed.
Issuers typically earn interest on the cash and securities backing their tokens. Open Standard intends to reward the companies that generate OUSD supply and activity.
Founding partners will not receive a special revenue-sharing arrangement, Abrams said. They will earn rewards under the same contribution-based framework available to other partners.
The company also intends to distribute much of its equity to founders and network participants over the next four to five years.
Eligible partners can earn equity through a combination of supply generation and transaction activity. That structure rewards moving OUSD as well as holding it.
Open Standard has not disclosed the minimum eligibility threshold or detailed allocation terms.
Fee-Free Minting and Burning Target Large Users
OUSD enters a stablecoin market worth more than $300 billion, dominated by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
Open Standard is competing on distribution and practical use, alongside its partner incentives. The stablecoin will eliminate minting and burning fees, potentially reducing costs for businesses frequently converting large amounts into and out of digital dollars.
Tempo chief business officer Dan Romero told CoinDesk he sees a possible path to approximately $1 billion of OUSD on Tempo within months and more than $10 billion during 2027.
Those figures are expectations rather than established balances. Tempo intends to compete with the other supported chains for the deepest OUSD liquidity.
Abrams said partners are already requesting stablecoins denominated in currencies beyond the U.S. dollar.
Any expansion would be driven by network demand. Open Standard has not announced specific currencies or launch dates.
For now, its immediate challenge is translating partner commitments into circulating supply, liquidity, and recurring transactions. Its longer-term ambition is to make stablecoins part of the infrastructure behind everyday banking and global payments.
