Stablecoin Market Shift: Over 140 Giants Launch Open Standard with OUSD
A coalition of over 140 financial and tech giants has launched Open Standard, an independent entity that issues a new USD-pegged token called Open USD (OUSD). This move marks a significant structural shift in control over global payment infrastructure reserves. On the day of the announcement, Circle's stock plummeted 17% due to market expectations of a change in the float backing global payment infrastructure reserves.
Open Standard's organizational structure is unique, with a board composed of partner institutions governing the network as a consortium rather than answering to a single corporate shareholder. Its founding CEO is Zach Abrams, who previously co-founded Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion.
OUSD's design is based on three principles: zero-cost minting and redemption, redistribution of reserve yield, and consortium governance. This new token redistributes its economic benefit upstream, giving partners like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe a proportionate share of the US dollar revenue directly based on the OUSD transaction volume they drive and hold.
The stablecoin market has been transformed by this launch, with OUSD challenging USDC's dominance. The impact on Circle and Tether is significant, as OUSD threatens to erode their distribution channels and compress their profit margins.