Visa, Stripe and 140 others back new Open USD stablecoin to challenge Tether
A consortium of more than 140 financial, payments and technology companies, including Visa Inc., Stripe Inc. and BlackRock Inc. is backing a new stablecoin called Open USD, taking direct aim at the market leaders Tether and Circle Internet Group Inc.
The token, also known as OUSD, was unveiled by Open Standard LLC, an independent company that will operate it with a board drawn from its partners. Open USD will launch later this year. The group did not say which blockchain it will run on, though Tempo, the Stripe-aligned payments chain, said OUSD will be natively issued on its network from day one.
The pitch to business is built on economics. Companies can mint and redeem Open USD with no fees and no volume limits and partners keep most of the revenue earned on the reserves backing the token, minus a management fee that covers operating costs. That structure breaks from the dominant model, in which the issuer pockets the interest income on reserves.
“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,” Zach Abrams, founding chief executive of Open Standard, said in the announcement. Abrams co-founded the stablecoin startup Bridge Ventures Inc., which Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2025.
