Open USD (OUSD) is a U.S. dollar stablecoin from Open Standard, an independent company whose five founding partners, Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa, each hold an equal initial stake. It was unveiled in June 2026 and went live on September 30, 2026.
Its pitch is economic rather than technical: instead of the issuer keeping the interest earned on reserves, Open USD passes that income to the companies that use and distribute it. More than 200 companies have joined as partners, and the founders committed over $1 billion to seed liquidity.
How Open USD is backed
OUSD is issued by Bridge, a Stripe company, and is fully reserved, with reserves held at BlackRock, Lead Bank, BNY and other large financial institutions. Bridge publishes reserve attestations monthly. Businesses can mint and redeem 1:1 for dollars at no cost and with no volume limits.
What makes Open USD different
- Earn by default: reserve income goes to Open Standard partners, less a small management fee, rather than to a single issuer
- Free at the edges: mint and redeem at no cost through Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, BVNK and Coinbase
- Shared ownership: CEO Zach Abrams has said most of Open Standard's equity will be distributed over time to partners based on how much they grow OUSD
Where OUSD runs and who uses it
OUSD is issued natively on Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo, and trades on venues including Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap. Stripe made it the default stablecoin across its products on launch day, covering Treasury balances, card issuing, global payouts and onramps.
Open Standard is led by Zach Abrams, who also runs Bridge. Recent partners include UBS, SBI Holdings and Ramp.
