Investors should be aware that on June 30, 2026, the Open Standard consortium, led by Zach Abrams, co-founder of the Stripe-owned company Bridge, introduced Open USD (OUSD). This new stablecoin, designed for global money movement, has backing from over 140 companies, and is scheduled to launch later this year.
Let us explain.
Stripe is making OUSD the default stablecoin on its platform as part of its strategy to support the next phase of global commerce growth. Other key backers include Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, American Express, Google, Shopify, BNY Mellon, Ripple, and Solana, spanning payments, banking, technology, and crypto sectors.
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The initiative is positioned as a collaborative effort to create a business-friendly alternative to existing stablecoins like USDC and USDT, by shifting the economics so that reserve yields are shared with the partners who distribute and use the token rather than being retained primarily by a single issuer. Overall, the June 30 announcement represents a significant push toward a shared, partner-aligned stablecoin ecosystem aimed at lowering costs and improving incentives for high-volume business users.
Open architecture.
OUSD is designed as open infrastructure for enterprise payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border flows. It features zero mint and redemption fees with no volume caps for business partners, revenue sharing where most of the yield from reserves flows back to participants proportional to their usage (minus a small management fee), and open governance through a board made up of partner businesses. The stablecoin will have native multi-chain support, beginning with Solana and expanding to networks such as Base, Stellar, and Polygon. The value of each OUSD is backed 1:1 by regulated reserves of cash equivalents and U.S. Treasuries held at major financial institutions. Focus on enterprise payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border flows.
Sounds great, what is the worst that could happen?
Not live yet; announcement risk is high, details on exact reserves, custodians, audits, and token mechanics are still emerging. Consortium governance friction, such as coordinating competitors risks slow decision making, conflicting priorities, and diluted execution. This has sunk prior efforts like Libra/Diem. Liquidity and adoption cold-start problem, building deep liquidity, trading pairs, and real routed volume takes time even with big names on the list. Partners putting their logo on an announcement is easier than changing business models or shifting material flow.
Why talk about OUSD now?
Unprecedented initial distribution coalition:140+ partners span payments (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.), tech (Google, Shopify, DoorDash), crypto (Coinbase, OKX, etc.), banks, and asset managers (BlackRock). This could boost adoption and liquidity faster than typical new stablecoins. Circle was very well backed but not like this at the outset.
Structural challenge to incumbent economics: OUSD attacks the reserve-yield retention model that powers Circle (and Tether) profits and pressures the industry toward better distributor economics. This could accelerate mainstream/enterprise adoption.
Zero fees and predictable costs at scale: No mint/redeem fees or artificial limits makes it attractive for high-volume enterprise use cases where every basis point matters.
Strong incentive alignment for distribution: Yield sharing turns partners into economic stakeholders rather than paying customers or neutral integrators. The more OUSD they push or hold, the more revenue they earn. This directly addresses a key pain point with USDC/USDT. Stripe has signaled it as the default on its platform.
Summary
USDC currently leads in liquidity, proven scale, integrations, and immediate usability, supported by strong network effects that make it difficult to displace quickly. OUSD, by contrast, offers a structurally innovative model focused on incentives, costs, and governance, backed by a partner coalition that provides credible distribution reach potentially strong enough to pressure Circle’s economics. Given the multi-trillion-dollar size of the global commerce market, there is ample room for multiple stablecoin solutions to coexist. In the near term, we expect Circle to remain the leader in educating U.S. businesses and consumers on the advantages of stablecoins over legacy payment systems. We also note the longstanding “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mentality that still prevails in payments, a challenge Stripe is addressing head on. This is transformational for payments in the US and potentially overseas.
It’s all connected.
Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) and Circle (NASDAQ: CRCL) maintain one of the closest and most economically linked partnerships in the cryptocurrency sector, centered almost entirely on USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin. The relationship dates back to 2018, when the two companies jointly developed USDC, a stablecoin backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars, and shared responsibility for its issuance and operations through the CENTRE Consortium.
Today, Circle acts as the sole issuer of USDC, while Coinbase serves as its largest distribution partner and a major driver of adoption. The financial foundation of their partnership is a revenue-sharing agreement based on USDC holdings. Coinbase receives 100% of the interest income generated from USDC held on its own platform, and the two companies split interest income from USDC held elsewhere on a 50/50 basis. This arrangement produced roughly $1.4 billion in payments from Circle to Coinbase in 2025, representing a significant revenue stream for the exchange. The agreement, which is typically renewed every three years, is considered a long-term and foundational element of both companies’ businesses.
The partnership delivers clear mutual benefits. Coinbase gains substantial high-margin revenue, higher trading volumes, and equity exposure to Circle, while Circle benefits from Coinbase’s large user base and distribution network to expand USDC’s circulation and real-world utility. Their interests are closely aligned around growing stablecoin adoption, improving regulatory clarity, and building broader ecosystem infrastructure.
The recent OUSD announcement triggered a sharp market reaction, with both Coinbase and Circle shares falling 15–20% on the day. Investors reacted to the prospect of a well-funded, widely available alternative to USDC, fearing it could reduce Circle’s business volume and, by extension, Coinbase’s revenue share. Some also worried that a credible new competitor in payments could shrink the overall addressable market that investors had priced into Circle. However, both Circle and OUSD remain in the very early stages of market penetration, and there appears to be ample room for multiple stablecoins to coexist and grow as adoption expands.
