Open Standard, a consortium-style initiative, launched Open USD (OUSD), a dollar-pegged stablecoin built for business payments and corporate settlement, with more than 140 companies on board — including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, Standard Chartered, Ripple, Shopify, Google, and IBM. On Wednesday, Ethereum Institutional confirmed Open USD will launch on Ethereum on day one, giving the token access to a major institutional settlement layer, as reported by MEXC News and CoinMarketCap.
The Structure
Open USD features free minting and redemption, reserve-yield sharing with distribution partners, and joint governance. BNY Mellon is the custody partner for reserves. Zach Abrams, CEO of Stripe's stablecoin subsidiary Bridge, is the founding CEO of Open Standard. The launch is set against the backdrop of the GENIUS Act, the U.S. federal stablecoin framework signed into law in July 2025, which provides a compliance pathway for dollar-pegged issuers.
«The conversation has moved from whether stablecoins work to reliability, governance, and interoperability,» Visa executive Jack Forestell said of the consortium's launch.
Why It Matters
The consortium model is an attempt to avoid the single-issuer concentration that has drawn regulatory scrutiny to dominant stablecoins. With two card networks, two payment giants, and a custody bank inside the governance structure, Open USD is positioning itself as the institutional settlement layer of choice — a direct challenge to incumbent issuers as stablecoin payment volume continues to compound.
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