Open USD stablecoin goes live with a shared cap table

The Open USD stablecoin is a payments project wearing a crypto ticker. On Sept. 30, 2026, Open Standard chief executive Zach Abrams told CoinDesk the token was live on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo. The same day, Stripe's Henri Stern wrote that support was launching across Stripe products and that OUSD on Tempo was becoming the company's default stablecoin configuration. This is not investment advice. It is a reading of CoinDesk's interview and Stripe's product note, which agree on the launch and then emphasize different levers.

TL;DR - CoinDesk says five founding partners, Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa, each took an equal initial equity stake and together committed more than $1 billion to liquidity over the coming months. - Stripe says businesses can use OUSD in Treasury, Issuing, Global Payouts, Crypto Onramp, and Payments, with no minting or burning fees, and that existing stablecoin balances do not have to be converted. - Big supply targets in the CoinDesk piece, including a path to roughly $1 billion on Tempo "within the next few months," are forecasts from Tempo's Dan Romero, not balances already on chain.

What actually happened

Abrams previously co-founded Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure firm Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2024. CoinDesk says Open USD was first unveiled in June and went live on that Wednesday in late September. Abrams's line, which CoinDesk quotes, is the thesis in one breath: "Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We're building money." He says he wants it useful the way the dollar is useful, and dull enough to disappear into ordinary accounts.

The market he is walking into is, in CoinDesk's figures, still a two-name town. The stablecoin market is worth more than $300 billion. Tether's USDT has about $143 billion in circulation. Circle's USDC has roughly $74 billion. CoinDesk notes that the June announcement, with more than 140 partners including BlackRock, BNY, and Standard Chartered, rattled Circle's stock narrative because Coinbase, Visa, and Mastercard were names people associated with USDC. Some analysts, CoinDesk says, doubted that a crowd of competitors could decide anything. Abrams rejects the consortium label. Management runs the company. A smaller founder group has ownership and governance. The wider network is paid for contribution, not given a vote per logo.

The founder group, as of the interview, is five companies and only those five as investors: Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa, equal initial stakes. The size of each stake and each check was not disclosed. Together they committed more than $1 billion to establish liquidity over the coming months. Abrams expects the founding set to grow to roughly 10 to 12 companies and a board made of founders. The integration network, he told CoinDesk, had grown past 200 companies, with Japan's SBI Holdings, UBS, and the fintech Jeeves among newer names. Stripe's note repeats the founding list and the "more than 200 network partners" line.

Economics are the part that is supposed to be different from a Tether-or-Circle argument. CoinDesk says founding partners do not get a special slice of revenue. They earn rewards based on the OUSD supply they generate, under the same framework as other partners. Abrams says the overwhelming majority of the cap table will be distributed over the next four to five years to founders and non-founders based on how they help the network grow. Supply is not the only meter. Partners that clear a minimum threshold, which the firm did not disclose, can earn equity from a mix of supply and transaction activity.

What Stripe turned on

Stripe's note is a product page, not a macro essay. Stern says businesses can receive, hold, send, and spend OUSD with Treasury, run a card program with Issuing, and pay recipients with Global Payouts. They can offer fiat-to-OUSD conversion through Crypto Onramp and accept the token with Payments. Further support, the note says, will keep showing up as the default. Fees stay low as volume rises, and there are no minting or burning fees. CoinDesk attributes the no-mint, no-burn point to Dan Romero, Tempo's chief business officer, who called that a real saving for firms moving large balances in and out.

Partners, not ordinary businesses, are who Stripe says can earn rewards on activity, including OUSD balances sitting on Stripe. Bridge's orchestration APIs can convert between OUSD, fiat, and other stablecoins. Privy, Stern's company, is the wallet piece. Ramp, Stripe says, will soon use Stripe to power stablecoin accounts where users hold OUSD, earn rewards, and pay anywhere, around the clock.

Chain choice is explicit, and it is not a trap in the note's wording. OUSD is on Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo. Tempo is the default configuration inside Stripe. Stripe says it still supports other stablecoins and will not require users to convert existing balances. That sentence is the difference between a default and a mandate. A default can be changed. The note claims a default and denies a mandate.

Romero's scale talk is the section most likely to be screenshotted without its tense. He told CoinDesk he sees a path to roughly $1 billion of OUSD on Tempo within the next few months, more than $10 billion during 2027, and potentially more than $100 billion over several years. Tempo wants to be the deepest pool, even though issuance is multi-chain. Abrams says demand for non-dollar stablecoins is already showing up, and he points at a euro token Bridge issued for Revolut as evidence that firms ask for more than dollars. Looking a decade out, he says he wants the rails to handle "hundreds of trillions of dollars a year." Those are ambitions. CoinDesk does not present them as circulating supply on Sept. 30.

What not to confuse this with

A stablecoin launch is not a memecoin season and not a prediction-market print. People will still try. A network test like DogeOS is an app experiment on a joke coin. A buyback like the PUMP burn is a token-supply stunt. The Open USD stablecoin story, as these two pages tell it, is about who gets paid when dollars move, and who owns the issuer if the dollars actually move. If the supply never leaves the founding partners' own balance sheets, the equity-for-usage promise has nothing to measure. Abrams told CoinDesk the founders would hold, market-make, or market the token in whatever way fits each firm. "Committed more than $1 billion" is liquidity support. It is not a statement that $1 billion was already circulating that afternoon.

CoinDesk also names other joint-token efforts, including Qivalis and a bank group with Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and UBS. UBS is also on Open Standard's partner list. CoinDesk does not say UBS quit one for the other.

What to do as a reader (not a trade)

Check the tense on every large number. More than $300 billion, about $143 billion, and roughly $74 billion are CoinDesk's picture of the existing stablecoin market, USDT, and USDC. More than $1 billion is a liquidity commitment from five founders, with each check undisclosed. Roughly $1 billion, more than $10 billion, and more than $100 billion are Romero's path for Tempo, dated in months, in 2027, and over several years. "Hundreds of trillions" is Abrams talking about a decade. The Open USD stablecoin does not become that big because a sentence used the future tense.

Check what you are actually allowed to do on Stripe. Treasury, Issuing, payouts, onramp, and payments are the surfaces Stern listed. No mint or burn fee is a pricing claim from both pages. Rewards are for partners, not a promise that every merchant earns yield. Existing balances in other stablecoins do not have to move. If a tutorial says Stripe banned USDC, it is inventing a rule the note explicitly refuses.

Then ignore the ticker reflex. The Open USD stablecoin is a payments object in these pages. Nothing in either page is a reason to trade a governance token, because these pages do not announce one. The thing to watch, as a reader, is whether supply shows up outside the founders, whether the undisclosed equity threshold ever gets published, and whether "default" stays a setting. Until those three are visible, the Open USD stablecoin is a well-backed product launch with a philosophical cap table, not a finished replacement for the two coins that already have the float.