More than 140 companies announced backing for Open USD on Tuesday, a new dollar stablecoin pitched as a structural alternative to Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT. The coalition spans payments (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe), banking (BNY Mellon, Klarna), fintech (Shopify, DoorDash, Google), and crypto (Coinbase, Solana, Ripple). Open Standard, the independent company building the token, is led by Zach Abrams, who co-founded Bridge before Stripe acquired it for $1.1 billion in 2024.
The stablecoin model strips away what Open Standard says constrains existing competitors. Businesses can mint and redeem Open USD at no cost and with no volume limits. All earnings from reserve holdings flow to partners, minus a small management fee. Governance sits with a partner board rather than a single issuer. That structure directly inverts how Circle and Tether operate: both retain the interest accrued on their reserves as corporate revenue.
The market reacted immediately. Circle's stock fell roughly 13% on Tuesday, closing around $66, its weakest level since late February. Coinbase slipped about 4%, despite joining the backing coalition. Coinbase earns a share of USDC's reserve revenue under its agreement with Circle, so the company faces a conflict between its financial interest in the existing arrangement and its position as a board partner in a direct competitor.
Circle Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire downplayed the threat in a brief statement, saying the company welcomed "continued innovation and competition in the space." Neither statement addressed the core structural difference: the reserve-sharing model that underpins Open Standard's pitch.
Key details remain unconfirmed. Open Standard has not named a reserve custodian or specified which blockchains Open USD will run on. The company said many partners have signed up to use the token but did not disclose how binding each commitment is. Stripe said Open USD would become the default stablecoin for its platform, one of the few concrete usage commitments disclosed.
The alliance amounts to a credibility bet. The 140-company roster gives the project institutional weight that new stablecoins rarely command. Whether that translates to actual adoption depends on execution and regulatory clarity. Open USD is slated to launch later this year.