Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and 140 Firms Launch Open USD (OUSD) Revenue-Sharing Stablecoin

Summary

A consortium of 140+ companies — Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, Google, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Ripple and others — launched Open USD (OUSD), a dollar-pegged stablecoin run by an independent company, Open Standard, that directly attacks Circle's single-issuer reserve-yield economics. OUSD offers zero-fee mint/redemption with no volume caps and distributes nearly all reserve interest to partners (after a small management fee) rather than retaining it for one issuer. Circle (CRCL) shares fell ~17% on the news; Coinbase also traded lower despite being a consortium backer.

Key Facts

Ticker OUSD; governed by Open Standard, whose board is drawn from partners — no single issuer controls it.
Founding CEO Zach Abrams (co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin infra firm Stripe bought for $1.1B).
Backers span payments (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), banks/asset managers (BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, U.S. Bank), tech (Google, Shopify, Samsung, DoorDash) and crypto (Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Fireblocks, Aave, Solana).
Native issuance on Solana from day one; Polygon, Stellar, Base, Aptos to follow.
Market structure context: Tether USDT ~62% of stablecoin market, Circle USDC ~25% (April data); stablecoin supply >$300B, Citi projects $4T by 2030, BNY cites $1.5T by 2030.
Regulatory risk: the GENIUS Act (signed July 2025) bans payment-stablecoin yield to holders; the OCC's proposed implementing rule (Feb 25, 2026) creates a rebuttable presumption catching third-party yield routing — though a "white-label profit-sharing with non-affiliates" carve-out may shelter OUSD. Final rules due July 18, 2026.
Precedent: Paxos's Global Dollar Network (USDG) — same shared-yield model since late 2024 — has only ~$3B supply vs USDC $73B / USDT $145B, prompting some analysts (Clear Street, Ark Invest) to call the Circle selloff an overreaction.
Coinbase–Circle revenue-share agreement (~$908M to Coinbase in 2024) is up for renewal August 2026, sharpening the strategic tension.

Why It Matters

OUSD is the most credible institutional challenge yet to the single-issuer stablecoin model: it turns the reserve float — the single most profitable part of the stablecoin business — into a shared, network-owned utility. Whether OUSD becomes a genuine third force or merely a bargaining chip that forces Circle to renegotiate with Coinbase, the competitive structure of the stablecoin market changed on July 1.

Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and 140 Firms Launch Open USD (OUSD) Revenue-Sharing Stablecoin

Summary

Key Facts

Why It Matters

Sources