- More than 140 companies unveiled OpenUSD (OUSD) on Tuesday, a U.S. dollar stablecoin backed by a consortium.
- It will be operated by a newly created entity called Open Standard, whose founding CEO is Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge.
OpenUSD has arrived—and it is not simply “another stablecoin.” What may change from now on is the business model that has sustained Tether and Circle for the past several years: who captures the yield generated by reserve assets.
More than 140 companies—including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, Google, and BNY Mellon—announced OpenUSD (OUSD), a dollar-backed stablecoin supported by a consortium and operated by Open Standard, a newly established entity led by founding CEO Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin company acquired by Stripe in 2024.
The Real Stablecoin Business
Until now, when a company issued or distributed USDT or USDC, the interest generated by the short-term U.S. Treasury securities backing those reserves flowed almost entirely to the issuer. With interest rates remaining elevated, this “float” has become one of the most profitable businesses in crypto. Circle, for example, invests USDC reserves in short-term government debt, and the resulting spread is structurally its primary source of revenue.
OUSD directly challenges this model. The consortium promises that partners will be able to issue and redeem the stablecoin at no cost and without volume limits. Most of the yield generated by the reserves—though not all, as management fees will reportedly be deducted—will be redistributed to participating companies rather than retained by the issuer. For payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard, or processors like Stripe, this means no longer “working for free” to support another issuer’s business and instead earning revenue from the transaction volume they facilitate.
This raises a broader question that extends beyond the announcement itself: if distributing stablecoins begins generating revenue for the companies moving them, the criteria for selecting a stablecoin in wallets, exchanges, and payment fintechs may shift. Liquidity and brand trust may no longer be the only considerations; revenue-sharing models could become equally important. This would represent an incentive shift across the entire value chain, not just the launch of a new digital asset.
Shared Governance: Strength and Weakness at the Same Time
The second major departure from the Tether/Circle model is governance. OUSD does not have a single issuer. Instead, it is governed by a board composed of member companies, following the concept of neutral infrastructure, similar to the role the internet played in its early years.
This design is simultaneously its strongest selling point and its greatest source of skepticism among analysts. ARK Invest has questioned whether a consortium of nearly 500 entities with differing interests can make decisions quickly enough to compete with Tether and Circle. Analysts highlighted the challenge of launching without established liquidity, the lack of mature trading pairs against major crypto assets, and the risks associated with fragmented governance.
Similarly, analysts at William Blair argued that the market reaction may have been excessive. They compared OUSD to previous consortium initiatives such as MCX and Paze—joint ventures that ultimately failed to displace established players—and described the project as a response to a problem that Circle was already addressing through incentive agreements with strategic partners.
The most frequently cited benchmark is Global Dollar, the consortium-backed stablecoin launched by Paxos in late 2024. After more than a year, its circulation stands at roughly $3 billion, far below USDC’s $73 billion and USDT’s $145 billion. Analysts point to this gap as a reminder that having 140 prominent partners does not automatically guarantee deep liquidity or meaningful everyday usage.
Who Is In—and Who Is Not
Open Standard’s founding members include payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), banks and asset managers (BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Standard Chartered), technology companies (Google, Shopify, IBM), crypto platforms (Coinbase, Ripple, OKX, Bybit), and B2B fintech firms such as Brex, Ramp, Corpay, Chime, and Remitly. In terms of institutional backing, it is one of the most significant stablecoin launches to date.
Yet the absences are equally telling. Neither Tether, Circle, nor PayPal are part of the consortium, drawing a clear competitive line between established issuers and this new shared infrastructure model.
There is also an interesting nuance within the consortium itself. BlackRock and BNY Mellon—both OpenUSD partners—are also central players in Circle’s reserve management ecosystem. This highlights how many traditional financial institutions view OUSD not as an exclusive bet, but as a hedge: participation on both sides of a potential market-share battle.
The Regulatory Context Behind the Move
None of this is happening in a regulatory vacuum. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in the United States in 2025, established the first federal framework specifically for payment stablecoins. Its implementation, combined with progress on the CLARITY Act in the Senate, created the conditions for a consortium of this scale to launch a regulated product without relying on a single issuer’s corporate structure.
Officials involved in Washington’s crypto policy agenda cited the launch as evidence that regulatory clarity is beginning to unlock innovation within the sector.
For the Latin American market, which closely follows how U.S. regulations influence stablecoin adoption in payment and remittance corridors, the emergence of a player backed simultaneously by card networks, global banks, and crypto platforms is particularly noteworthy. If OUSD gains meaningful traction, payment fintechs operating across Latin America—many already integrated with Visa, Mastercard, or Stripe—could have a direct economic incentive to shift volume toward OUSD instead of USDC or USDT.
What Remains Unknown
Despite the announcement, several key questions remain unanswered and will determine whether OUSD becomes a structural industry shift or another consortium experiment that struggles to scale.
The consortium has not yet disclosed precisely which blockchains the token will operate on, how reserve yield will be allocated across different categories of partners, or how much liquidity will be available at launch, which is expected later this year. It is also unclear whether the promise of “zero fees” is sustainable without the revenue cushion that currently allows Circle to invest heavily in integrations, incentives, and ecosystem expansion.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire responded calmly, emphasizing that USDC remains the market’s most trusted institutional stablecoin and that the company will continue expanding its offerings. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino was more ironic, describing the development as the arrival of “player two” on the board.
Both responses downplay the short-term threat. Yet neither company can ignore the fact that, for the first time, a coalition of this scale has decided it no longer wants to finance another issuer’s business with its own transaction volume.