Visa, Mastercard, US Bank, Google and Coinbase are among dozens of firms backing Open USD, a new stablecoin slated to launch later this year.
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Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, saw its shares fall as much as 14% on news of the rival.
Open USD is governed and operated by Open Standard, a new independent company that counts more than 140 firms from banking, fintech, crypto and payments as founding partners. It is led by Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure firm acquired by Stripe in 2024.
While stablecoins are seeing rapid adoption, Open Standard says businesses still face hurdles, notably that fees to mint and redeem most are prohibitively expensive at larger volumes; companies aren’t always able to benefit from the revenues earned on the underlying reserves; and developers have little recourse if the roadmaps of third-party issuers do not meet their needs.
In contrast, businesses can mint and redeem Open USD at no cost and with no artificial limits on volume; partners receive all of the earnings from Open USD’s reserves, less a small management fee; and Open Standard has a board made up of partners, ensuring decisions are made for the collective interest.
Jorn Lambert, chief product officer, Mastercard, says: “As stablecoins become a new way to move value globally, we believe the infrastructure behind them should follow the same path: open, interoperable and broadly accessible. Open Standard is an effort to help build that foundation.”
Will Gaybrick, president, technology and business, Stripe, adds: “Businesses need a stablecoin designed to work at global, industrial scale. And not at the scale of the 2026 economy, but of the 2040 economy, with flurries of activity we can only begin to imagine. That’s why Open USD will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe; they are the ones shaping the next 15 years of economic growth.”
