The stablecoin market just got its most ambitious consortium yet. Aptos Labs announced a partnership with Open Standard to launch Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin initiative backed by more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, and Coinbase.
What Open USD actually is
Open USD isn’t just another dollar-pegged token competing with USDT and USDC. It’s designed as a programmable, interoperable stablecoin built specifically for enterprise payments and global money transfers.
The governance model is where things get genuinely interesting. Rather than having one issuer calling the shots (the way Tether dominates USDT or Circle controls USDC), Open Standard operates through a board representing its partner companies. Revenue gets shared among members.
Tether reportedly generates billions in profit from the interest earned on its reserves, and it keeps virtually all of it. Open USD’s model suggests the consortium believes shared economics will drive faster adoption than any single company could achieve alone.
