What Is Open USD? The Stablecoin Model Taking on Tether and Circle

Stablecoins have largely followed a familiar formula: issue a digital token designed to track the US dollar, hold reserves against it, and generate revenue from those reserves. Open USD (OUSD) is trying to change what happens around that model.

Launched by Open Standard on September 30, 2026, OUSD is designed primarily as infrastructure for businesses moving money online. Rather than keeping the economics of its reserves concentrated around a single issuer, Open Standard says participating businesses can share in the earnings generated by OUSD’s reserves.

That difference is what puts OUSD into competition with established dollar stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, although its approach is aimed as much at payment companies and financial infrastructure providers as it is at crypto users.

What Is Open USD?

Open USD, or OUSD, is a dollar-denominated stablecoin created by Open Standard and issued by Bridge Building Inc.

The token is designed to maintain a 1:1 value with the US dollar. Businesses can mint and redeem OUSD at 1:1 without minting or burning fees through supported integration partners.

OUSD is currently available natively on:

• Ethereum
• Base
• Solana
• Tempo

The project is focused on applications such as payments, settlement, foreign exchange, wallets, institutional trading and cross-border money movement.

In other words, Open Standard is not positioning OUSD simply as another crypto asset to hold. The broader proposition is to make a stablecoin function more like financial infrastructure that businesses can build on.

Read More: How to Trade USDT-Margined Perpetual Futures in India (INR Funded)

How Is OUSD Different From USDT and USDC?

The most interesting difference is the economics surrounding the reserves.

With conventional stablecoin models, the issuer generally earns income from the assets backing the stablecoin. Open Standard is proposing a different arrangement.

Businesses that become Open Standard partners can receive rewards based on their contribution to OUSD supply and activity. Open Standard says partners receive the earnings generated by OUSD’s reserves, minus a management fee covering operating costs.

That creates a model that can be thought of as:

Stablecoin usage → larger OUSD activity → reserve earnings → rewards for participating businesses

The idea is relatively straightforward: if businesses help create demand for the stablecoin, they can potentially participate in the economics generated by that activity.

OUSD vs USDT vs USDC

The table describes the respective models and does not imply that one stablecoin is universally better than another.

Why Visa, Mastercard and Stripe Matter

OUSD’s biggest differentiator may not be the token itself. It is the distribution network being built around it.

Open Standard launched with a large group of companies spanning payments, banking, fintech and technology. Its announced participants include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, American Express, Discover, BlackRock, BNY, Google, Fiserv, Adyen, Klarna, Western Union and others. The initial announcement cited more than 140 businesses, while later launch materials refer to more than 200 network partners.

That distinction matters.

A stablecoin can exist without major financial companies using it. But getting established payment networks and financial technology companies to build OUSD into their products gives the token potential distribution beyond traditional crypto exchanges.

How Stripe Is Using OUSD

Stripe is one of the most important pieces of the OUSD strategy.

As of September 30, 2026, OUSD became the default stablecoin configuration on Stripe’s Tempo setup, while Stripe continues to support other stablecoins and blockchain choices.

Businesses can use OUSD through Stripe for several functions, including:

• Holding and moving funds
• Global payouts
• Card programs
• Payments
• Treasury operations
• Fiat-to-OUSD conversions
• Wallet infrastructure

Stripe says businesses can also potentially earn rewards through the Open Standard partner program based on OUSD activity. Stripe

This turns OUSD from a standalone token into something that can sit underneath existing financial products.

What Visa Brings to OUSD

Visa provides another major distribution channel.

Through its Stablecoin Platform, businesses can use OUSD for functions such as payments, swaps, on/off-ramps, wallets and settlement. Open Standard lists Visa as one of the available integration paths for businesses building with OUSD.

The important point is that users do not necessarily need to interact with OUSD as a traditional crypto investment. A business could use stablecoins in the background while customers continue interacting with familiar payment interfaces.

What Mastercard Brings

Mastercard has also incorporated OUSD into its digital-asset infrastructure.

Its current stablecoin offering lists OUSD alongside other supported stablecoins and provides wholesale mint-and-redeem access. Mastercard describes the setup as connecting stablecoins, tokenized deposits, blockchain networks and traditional payment rails.

For businesses, that could make stablecoins less about opening a crypto account and more about plugging another settlement asset into an existing payments stack.

The “Building Money” Idea

This is where Open USD’s strategy gets interesting.

Open Standard’s proposition is essentially that businesses should help build the stablecoin network and also participate in the economics created by that network.

Instead of thinking of OUSD simply as:

“A digital dollar issued by a company”

the project is trying to position it as:

“A shared financial infrastructure layer that businesses can build on.”

Open Standard says its governance model is designed around an independent company whose board includes OUSD partners. The stated goal is collaborative management rather than having one issuer control the entire ecosystem.

That is also why the project describes itself as an open standard rather than simply another stablecoin issuer.

Why the Reserve Model Matters

Stablecoins can generate significant revenue because the dollars and other assets backing them can earn returns.

Open Standard’s model attempts to distribute much of that economic value to participating businesses.

For example, imagine a payment company processes a large volume of transactions using OUSD.

Under the Open Standard model, that company isn’t simply bringing transaction volume to someone else’s stablecoin. If it qualifies as a partner, it can potentially receive rewards connected to OUSD activity.

That creates a different incentive structure:

More businesses → more OUSD usage → greater network activity → more potential reserve earnings → greater incentive for businesses to participate.

Whether this model can produce a sustainable network effect at scale remains an open question.

OUSD’s Role in Payments

Open USD is particularly focused on the parts of finance where moving money internationally can still involve multiple intermediaries.

Potential applications include:

Cross-border payments

OUSD can provide a dollar-based settlement asset that businesses can move across supported blockchain networks.

Global payouts

Businesses can use stablecoin infrastructure to send funds to recipients in different markets.

Treasury management

Companies can hold and move dollar-denominated digital assets as part of their treasury operations.

FX

Open Standard’s integration stack includes foreign-exchange functionality, allowing businesses to connect OUSD with fiat and other digital currencies.

Settlement

Financial institutions and payment providers can use stablecoins as a settlement layer rather than relying exclusively on traditional banking rails.

These use cases are central to OUSD’s positioning as business infrastructure rather than simply a crypto trading asset.

Who Is Behind Open USD?

Open Standard was founded by companies including Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa, with a much wider network of partners involved in its ecosystem. OUSD itself is issued by Bridge Building Inc.

A notable connection is Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company that was acquired by Stripe in 2024. Open Standard’s current OUSD infrastructure builds on that stablecoin and payments technology.

This gives OUSD an interesting position between traditional financial infrastructure and crypto-native payments.

Is Open USD Trying to Replace USDT and USDC?

It is more accurate to say that OUSD is introducing a different stablecoin business model rather than simply trying to make another dollar token.

USDT and USDC already have enormous liquidity, exchange availability and established use cases.

OUSD is approaching the market from another direction: business adoption and shared economics.

Its bet is that companies building payment products, wallets, settlement systems and financial services will want more than a stable digital dollar. They may also want access to the economics created by the stablecoin ecosystem they help grow.

That is the central idea behind Open Standard’s model.

What Could Make OUSD Important?

Several pieces of the project are worth watching:

1. Major payment networks are involved

Visa, Mastercard and Stripe give OUSD access to established financial infrastructure.

2. Businesses can mint and redeem without fees through supported routes

This removes one potential barrier to large-scale usage.

3. Partners can participate in reserve economics

This is one of the clearest differences from traditional issuer-centric stablecoin economics.

4. It is designed for multiple financial applications

Payments, settlement, wallets, FX and treasury operations are all part of the intended use cases.

5. It is launching across several blockchains

OUSD is live on Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo.

What Are the Risks?

OUSD is still a new stablecoin, so its long-term adoption is not established.

There are several things businesses and users will need to monitor, including reserve management, regulatory requirements, liquidity, redemption processes, smart-contract risks, blockchain infrastructure and the actual economics of the partner-reward system.

There is also a practical question: can a new stablecoin create enough liquidity and usage to compete with the network effects already built around USDT and USDC?

Having major companies involved provides distribution, but it does not automatically guarantee that OUSD becomes a dominant stablecoin.

The Bigger Stablecoin Shift

The launch of OUSD reflects a broader change in how stablecoins are being viewed.

The first phase was largely about creating digital dollars for crypto markets.

The next phase is increasingly about using stablecoins as payment, settlement and financial infrastructure.

Open USD is pushing that idea further by attempting to connect the economics of the stablecoin with the companies helping build its network.

With Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and hundreds of other partners involved in the broader ecosystem, OUSD is entering the market with an approach that differs from the traditional stablecoin issuer model.

Whether that model can translate into meaningful adoption will depend on liquidity, business usage, regulatory developments and how effectively the network turns its large partner base into actual OUSD activity.

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