140 Firms, One Coin, Zero CEO: OUSD Stablecoin Drops Later This Year 🪙

More than 140 financial institutions, payment providers, technology firms and crypto companies have signed onto a new US dollar-pegged stablecoin called Open USD (OUSD), which is scheduled to go live later this year. The project is organized by Open Standard, an independent company governed by a board drawn from participating partners including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Adyen, Fiserv, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, U.S. Bank, Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, Ripple, Crypto.com, Fireblocks, MetaMask, Aave, Solana, Polygon, Stellar, Shopify, DoorDash, Google and IBM.

Open Standard framed the launch around three design principles: businesses will be able to mint and redeem OUSD at no cost and with no artificial limits on volume; partners will receive all earnings generated by the stablecoin's reserves; and developers will have a governance channel independent of any single third-party issuer's roadmap. Founding CEO Zach Abrams said the consortium was built to address what businesses encounter when using existing stablecoins at scale. "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.

Stripe President of Technology and Business Will Gaybrick said OUSD would become the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe, while Visa Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jack Forestell said governance, interoperability and trust would be essential as stablecoins become more deeply integrated into the global financial system. The broader stablecoin market was valued at more than $312 billion, according to DefiLlama, with projections estimating it could reach up to $4 trillion by 2030.

The launch lands against a regulatory backdrop shaped by last year's GENIUS Act, which US President Donald Trump signed into law to establish a framework for payment stablecoins and which is now awaiting finalized federal implementation rules. Circle, issuer of USDC, saw shares of Circle Internet Group drop more than 16% on Tuesday to $63.63 following the announcement, while Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said on X that the company welcomed "continued innovation and competition in the space," adding that it would soon expand support for both US dollar-pegged and non-US dollar stablecoins. Rhino.fi co-founder and CEO Will Harborne framed the moment as a turning point for incumbent stablecoins $USDT and $USDC, noting that the same reserve-revenue model that distinguishes OUSD could also accelerate market fragmentation as more entrants join the field.