Open USD (OUSD -0.04%) is a brand new stablecoin backed by a syndicate of financial businesses, and it's already clear that its existence will have major implications for the stablecoin market. It launched Sept. 30, 2026, and its supply had reached $668 million by Oct. 2, adding hundreds of millions in value over the course of just a few days. It's in direct competition with the two leaders of the stablecoin market, the USDC (USDC +0.00%) stablecoin offered by Circle Internet Group (CRCL +2.52%), as well as Tether's (USDT +0.01%) stablecoin.
OUSD's backers are a who's who of financial heavyweights, including Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase, among many others; they earn rewards and equity tied to the supply and activity they drive. But why would these payment giants back a stablecoin that competes with coins they already support when they already profit from rival stablecoins? Here's what you need to know.
Image source: Getty Images.
How Open USD pays the companies that back it
In a nutshell, stablecoin issuers earn interest on the reserves that back the coin's value.
Those reserves are heavily composed of Treasuries and other cash equivalents. Circle shares some of its reserve revenue with the distributors of USDC, like Coinbase, whereas Tether keeps much of it and relies on crypto-native users for distribution.
NYSE: CRCL
Key Data Points
Interestingly, Open USD flips that default configuration in a way that makes it significantly more likely to be widely distributed.
Its distribution partners are allowed to collect the reserve income from the portion of the supply that they distribute to their clients by default, after a small management fee; there's no one central entity that gets to keep the income. Therefore, revenue from reserves scales directly with the activity that each distribution partner is able to drive via their own efforts to promote it via their own operations and within their own payment networks. In turn, that heavily incentivizes distributors to compete for as wide and deep a distribution as possible, and it also means that competing businesses can participate in the OUSD syndicate without fear of accidentally helping their competitors.
Visa's $20 billion stablecoin settlement pace doesn't need OUSD
Visa said on Sept. 8 that its stablecoin settlement volume had surpassed a $20 billion annualized pace, more than 15 times the prior year's level. Businesses can already mint their own OUSD through Mastercard and Visa's stablecoin platforms.
But neither company is picking one winner as far as their preferred stablecoin goes, despite their association with OUSD. Both run network validators, which are the computers that confirm transactions, on Circle's new Arc blockchain for stablecoins, and both say they still support USDC.
So for holders of Visa or Mastercard stock, OUSD is a cheap bet on stablecoin growth. In other words, Visa and Mastercard don't need to push OUSD to win or to grow in a general sense. They need to run more stablecoin traffic across their various payment channels to ensure that they're well positioned for the future, when the money flowing on blockchain rails could be several orders of magnitude more than it is today.
Are Circle and Tether at risk of disruption here?
Circle has the most to lose, and OUSD is indeed a real threat to its business.
In Q2 2026, it paid $410.4 million in distribution and transaction costs, or a share of 58.5% of its $701.3 million in revenue and reserve income. Now, every distributor has an alternative to raise at its next negotiation.
Tether looks somewhat safer. Its flagship USDT stablecoin operates outside of U.S. regulations, and its U.S.-regulated stablecoin, USAT, is not in wide distribution, and it had only $183 million in circulation as of Oct. 2. So its exposure is smaller in the near term, though OUSD's 200-plus partners already include UBS and Japan's SBI Holdings.
If you hold Circle's stock, the launch of OUSD should be a reminder to reevaluate your investment thesis. Circle is nowhere near being in deep danger, but the competitive landscape just shifted against it.
