This project, created by a consortium of the largest payment systems, has become one of the most significant steps taken by traditional financial giants into the world of digital assets.
The new product, called Open USD (OUSD), was launched as part of the Open Standard initiative. It is currently available to corporate clients and developers who are creating new financial instruments for banking operations, settlements, and international transfers. Visa, Stripe, Coinbase Global Inc., and a Mastercard subsidiary called BVNK are participating in the initial launch. Shopify Inc. has also joined the project and plans to issue tokens worth approximately $1 billion to ensure rapid liquidity.
Bridge, a subsidiary of Stripe, is responsible for issuing OUSD. To ensure the availability of dollar reserves, BNY, Lead Bank, and BlackRock oversee them, and reports on the status of the reserves will be published monthly and made publicly available. The token will operate on blockchain networks such as Solana, Ethereum, Base, and Tempo. Trading is scheduled to begin on the Coinbase, Kraken, and Uniswap exchanges.
The emergence of such an instrument indicates that major market players are increasingly turning their attention to stablecoins. They seek to replace traditional clearing systems with cheaper, faster, and programmable settlement methods. This development is also being driven by an improving regulatory environment in the U.S., where rules are being developed at the federal level to promote dollar-backed digital assets.
Of course, despite strong institutional support, Open Standard will have to compete with giants such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which currently control nearly all global liquidity. Previous attempts by large companies to capture market share often failed due to low demand. To avoid repeating this scenario, OUSD has implemented a partner rewards system that provides for the distribution of profits and equity shares among all participating companies.