Open Standard, a new consortium of more than 140 companies spanning payments, banking and crypto, announced Open USD (OUSD) on June 30, a stablecoin structured to be owned and governed by the businesses that use it rather than run for the profit of a single issuer.
Introducing Open USD: a stablecoin built for the internet economy, designed by the businesses growing it. https://t.co/jqgDRs6mKf
— Open Standard (@openstandard) June 30, 2026
Solana's official account said the token will launch natively on the network from day one, ahead of a broader rollout to Polygon, Stellar and Aptos later this year.
The design breaks from how Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT operate today. Open USD charges no fees to mint or redeem and sets no volume caps, according to the announcement. Partners collect nearly all of the interest earned on the reserves backing the token, after a small management fee that covers Open Standard's operating costs, instead of an issuer retaining that yield itself. Governance sits with Open Standard, an independent company whose board is drawn from its partner base.
Zach Abrams, Open Standard's founding chief executive, previously co-founded Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company Stripe bought for $1.1 billion in 2025. "Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that's open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests," Abrams said in the announcement.
The partner list is unusually broad for a stablecoin launch. It includes payments networks and processors such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Fiserv, Adyen and Klarna; banks and asset managers including BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS and U.S. Bank; technology platforms Google, Shopify, Samsung Electronics and DoorDash; and crypto-native firms Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Fireblocks, Aave and Solana itself.
BNY's Carolyn Weinberg said in a supporting statement that the bank anticipates the stablecoin market could grow to $1.5 trillion by 2030. Stripe's Will Gaybrick said Open USD "will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe."
Circle was the news's clearest casualty. CRCL stock opened near $72 on Tuesday and fell to a four-month low before closing down by 17.55%. The reaction reflects how directly Open USD's model threatens Circle's core business, which relies on retaining the interest earned on USDC's reserves rather than sharing it with distributors. Open USD proposes to do the opposite by design.
Coinbase's involvement sharpened the reaction. Coinbase and Circle jointly created the Centre Consortium that launched USDC, and the two still share reserve revenue under a commercial agreement reportedly up for renewal in August. Circle paid Coinbase more than $900 million in 2024 for USDC distribution under that arrangement. Coinbase joining a rival consortium that shares reserve economics more broadly raises the question of what Coinbase will ask for when that deal comes up again.
Analysts were split on whether the selloff was justified. Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick called the partner list "a real threat to Circle's business," noting Stripe's product suite could let the consortium undercut Circle's economics, but cautioned that "consortiums are hard and they break easily" because incentives across 140 companies are rarely aligned. Clear Street's Owen Lau argued the 17% drop was "an overreaction," pointing to Paxos' Global Dollar Network, a similar partner-owned, revenue-sharing stablecoin launched in late 2024 that has grown to only about $3 billion in supply, against USDC's roughly $73 billion and USDT's $145 billion. Newsletter writer Noelle Acheson noted the announcement left unresolved questions about Open Standard's ownership structure, its licensing framework as issuer, and exactly how reserve income will be split among 140 partners.
The bigger shift the episode points to is where value accrues in the stablecoin business. Arca CIO Jeff Dorman argued the real opportunity now lies less with issuers like Circle and Tether and more with the exchanges, payment processors, wallets and blockchains that distribute and settle stablecoins, since those are the businesses Open Standard has assembled to build OUSD. Whether that network effect materialises depends on adoption Open Standard has not yet demonstrated. A list of 140 partner logos says little about whether those companies will actually route volume through a shared token once it competes with their existing stablecoin relationships. That test only begins after Open USD launches later this year.
