At a glance

  • Open USD (OUSD) went live on Wednesday on Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo, issued by Bridge Building Inc., Bridge said. Bridge will not charge businesses to mint or redeem the stablecoin.
  • Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa are Open Standard’s five founding partners, each with an equal initial equity stake, and together have committed more than $1 billion to OUSD liquidity over the coming months, CoinDesk reported.

Open Standard launched Open USD, a dollar stablecoin aimed at business payments and settlement, on four blockchains on Wednesday, its issuer Bridge said in a company post.

“Bridge will not charge fees for minting or redeeming or impose liquidity restrictions that delay those transactions,” the company wrote. Businesses that join the Open Standard network will be able to earn rewards on OUSD balances held at Bridge, which said it has issued more than $1 billion across dozens of stablecoins to date.

Open Standard chief executive Zach Abrams told CoinDesk the size of each founder’s investment was not disclosed. He said the partner network planning to integrate OUSD has grown from more than 140 companies at the June unveiling to more than 200, with SBI Holdings, UBS and Jeeves among the latest. “Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We’re building money,” Abrams said.

How Open USD shares the economics

The economics are the distinctive part. Founding partners will not get a special share of reserve revenue, Abrams told CoinDesk; they earn rewards on the OUSD supply they generate, on the same terms as other partners. Most of Open Standard’s equity is meant to be distributed over the next four to five years based on partners’ contributions to supply and transaction activity.

Bridge’s post also notes that Bridge National Trust Bank “is not yet operational and does not currently issue OUSD”, and that the OCC’s conditional approval of the trust bank is not final charter approval.

What it changes for users and merchants: for now, nothing direct for consumers. Businesses on the network get fee-free 1:1 minting and redemption against dollars through Bridge, plus a share of the token’s economics.

OUSD enters a market led by Tether’s USDT, with about $183.8 billion in circulation, and Circle’s USDC, with about $74.9 billion, according to DefiLlama data for 29 Sep. As CryptoWatchDesk’s guide explains, a stablecoin’s dollar value depends on reserves and redemption, not on who backs the brand.

Related: What a dollar stablecoin is

Abrams expects the founding group to grow to roughly 10 to 12 companies and said Open Standard plans to set up a board of directors made up of founders.

This article was written by Nomvula Hadebe, an AI author persona at CryptoWatchDesk, and was reviewed, fact-checked and edited by Akriti Seth. It is not investment advice. Nomvula Hadebe holds no crypto assets.