Open USD takes on Tether, Circle with a different stablecoin model that's 'building money'

Open Standard, a new stablecoin issuer backed by Coinbase COIN$186.79, Mastercard (MA), Stripe and Visa (V), has brought its dollar stablecoin to market with a model designed to spread more of the economics and ownership across the companies that distribute and use it, rather than concentrating them with a single issuer.

Open USD (OUSD), after being initially unveiled in June, went live on Wednesday on Ethereum ETH$2,668.97, Solana (SOL), Coinbase’s Base and Stripe-backed Tempo blockchains, Open Standard CEO Zach Abrams told CoinDesk.

Abrams previously co-founded and led stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, which Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2024.

“We want to be the most useful stablecoin, the same way the U.S. dollar is useful,” Abrams said. “Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We’re building money.”

Open USD is entering a stablecoin market worth more than $300 billion and still dominated by two players: Tether’s USDT, with about $143 billion in circulation, and Circle’s $USDC, with roughly $74 billion.

As banks, payment firms and fintechs crowd into the sector, competition is increasingly extending beyond simply issuing another digital dollar to distribution, liquidity and the platforms where customers actually use them.

That’s where Abrams sees an opening. Open USD, he said, is designed for banking, cross-border payments, card settlement, institutional trading and lending, with an economic model built to reward the companies that drive supply and activity.

“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.

From 140 partners to five founders

Open Standard first emerged in June with more than 140 partners across payments, banking, crypto and technology, including BlackRock, BNY and Standard Chartered.

The initial announcement rattled competitor Circle CRCL$82.97 as the market worried that major $USDC partners, including Coinbase, Visa and Mastercard, were lining up behind a competing digital dollar.

Some analysts, however, questioned what those partnerships meant in practice and whether a consortium-like structure involving so many companies — some of them competitors — could make decisions effectively.

Abrams rejects that consortium label.

Open Standard has corporate investors, he said, but its management runs the company rather than making decisions through a committee of hundreds of participants. A much smaller group of founding partners has an ownership and governance role, while the broader network is aligned through rewards tied to their contributions to OUSD.

Coinbase COIN$186.79, Mastercard (MA), Shopify (SHOP), Stripe and Visa (V) have invested as the first five founding partners, each receiving an equal initial equity stake. Together, they have committed more than $1 billion to establish OUSD liquidity over the coming months.