Visa, Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock launch Open USD, new stablecoin

More than 140 companies announced their participation in the Open Standard for the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin created to facilitate digital payments and share most of the revenue generated by its reserves with participating companies. Among the members of the initiative are Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase, and other companies from the financial, technology, and cryptocurrency sectors.

The Open Standard proposal is to offer an open infrastructure for the issuance and use of the stablecoin. According to information released by the project, companies will be able to issue and redeem Open USD without charging fees or volume limitations, while most of the revenue obtained from the coin's reserves will be distributed to participants after the deduction of a small management fee.

The launch of Open USD is expected to take place by the end of this year. In addition to the possibility of participating in the division of revenues, companies that join the Open Standard will be able to use the stablecoin as the main means of payment in their products and services, receive support for technological integration, and expand their participation as adoption of the digital currency grows.

Another highlight is the governance model. Instead of a single issuer controlling the entire operation, Open USD will be managed by an independent organization, with decisions shared among partner companies.

The list of participants brings together major names from the financial and technology markets. In addition to Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe, the initiative includes American Express, Discover, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, Google, Shopify, IBM, Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, MetaMask, Ripple, and Galaxy, among other organizations.

"Today, we are announcing that Visa is joining Open Standard alongside Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, US Bank, BBVA, Standard Chartered, and more than 100 initial partners with the mission of issuing Open USD, a shared stablecoin designed for the global financial system," wrote Cuy Sheffield, head of cryptocurrencies at Visa, on X.

Other executives also commented on the initiative. Jorn Lambert, Mastercard's chief product officer, said that a shared and interoperable infrastructure is essential to integrate stablecoins into the financial system more broadly. Will Gaybrick, Stripe's president of Product and Business, stated that Open USD aims to become the standard stablecoin for companies that use the company's platform.

In another statement, Matt Huang, CEO of Tempo, said that Open USD will be "natively issued on its network from day one," offering support for payments, liquidity, exchanges, and decentralized finance. So far, Open Standard has not informed whether Tempo will be the only network responsible for the stablecoin's native issuance at launch.