Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
Stripe-owned Bridge issues Open Standard's OUSD stablecoin natively on four blockchains
Stripe-owned Bridge is issuing the OUSD stablecoin on four blockchains, with reserves held at BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY. Open Standard has not said how much has been issued, so its list of more than 200 partner businesses is the only size figure on record.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- For supported business integrations, Open Standard says OUSD can be minted and redeemed at 1:1 against the U.S. dollar.
- Businesses first reach OUSD through BVNK, Stripe and the Visa Stablecoin Platform, and a Coinbase integration is scheduled to begin on October 1.
- Under a revenue-sharing model, partners that distribute OUSD or generate activity on their platforms may earn rewards linked to supply and usage, and some may receive equity.
- An August partnership between Upbit operator Dunamu and Visa listed OUSD-based applications among possible uses but did not create a live OUSD payment product.
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Why it matters
- capability A business already on BVNK, Stripe or Visa's stablecoin platform can add OUSD without building its own issuing, transfer or redemption systems, according to Open Standard.
- exposure Open Standard describes 1:1 redemption for supported business integrations; holders who buy OUSD on Coinbase, Kraken or Uniswap are not covered by any redemption terms in the announcement.
- decision A treasury team weighing OUSD for settlement has only custodian names to judge the reserves by until the first monthly attestation shows what they hold.
When Open Standard first announced OUSD in June, it had more than 140 participating businesses [9]. Both that figure and the current one are lower bounds. The thing the roster doesn't tell you is how many of those partners have minted, sent or redeemed a token.
Given how partners are rewarded [10], I'd read the roster as a count of distribution agreements. Crypto Times, which reported the launch, made a similar point, writing that "those relationships do not by themselves indicate the scale of future adoption" [17]. Adoption would show up in circulating supply and transaction volume. The launch announcement included neither figure. It also did not break down what the reserves hold or state their starting value [7][13]. Open Standard says reserve attestations will be published monthly [8].
OUSD is issued natively on each of its four networks [1]. When a supply figure is published, it will be a total across Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo, and the per-chain split will show where businesses are actually settling. Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company Stripe acquired, handles the issuance [3].
Open Standard pitches the token at payments, settlement, foreign exchange and institutional trading [2]. It also lists cross-border payments, wallets and card infrastructure among possible applications [16]. In every one of those uses OUSD competes with USDT and USDC, the two tokens that dominate the dollar-stablecoin market it is entering [15].
What to watch
- The first monthly attestation, and whether it breaks down reserve composition and value across BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY.
- Circulating supply on each of Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo after the Coinbase integration starts on October 1.
- Whether the Dunamu-Visa work moves OUSD from a listed use case to a live payment product.