Cryptocurrency

Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase Commit $1 Billion to New Stablecoin: Is Open USD a Challenge to Tether, USDC, and RLUSD?

Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase just pooled $1 billion behind a brand-new stablecoin that shares its profits with partners rather than hoarding them, and that single design choice puts one established giant directly in the crosshairs.

By Sam Daodu
Published October 4, 2026, 11:00am ET · 4 min read

The Crypto Desk desk. Editor: Sam Daodu.

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A person's index finger points to a glowing circular icon labeled 'STABLECOIN' in the center of a white network diagram. Connected by lines are six other white circular icons: a mobile phone with a dollar sign, a padlock indicating security, a globe symbolizing global reach, an upward trending financial chart, a classical building with a magnifying glass representing regulation, and a hand holding a coin above a scale. The background is a blurred image of a person in a blue jacket and red tie, standing in front of a brick wall.
A conceptual network visualizes the diverse facets of stablecoins, from security to global transactions, as new digital currencies like Open USD emerge. © Panchenko Vladimir / Shutterstock.com

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN | COIN Price Prediction), Mastercard (NYSE: MA), Visa (NYSE: V), Stripe, and Shopify have collectively committed $1 billion in liquidity to the Open USD stablecoin, which launched on September 30, 2026. A stablecoin is designed to maintain a value of $1, and with major payment companies backing it, OUSD is entering the market with significant support.

The $1 billion represents liquidity that these partners are ready to provide, allowing users to easily convert OUSD into dollars. While this commitment is substantial, it still pales in comparison to the existing market giants. This raises the question: Does Open USD pose a threat to Tether (CRYPTO: USDT), USD Coin (CRYPTO: USDC), and Ripple’s RLUSD (CRYPTO: RLUSD)?

Stripe’s Bridge Issues Open USD and Shares Reserve Income With Partners

A golden, physical Bitcoin coin rests on a white surface. Behind it, various denominations of US dollar bills are fanned out. On top of some dollar bills are four wooden letter blocks spelling "BTC USD". A black smartphone is partially visible in the bottom right corner of the frame.

Kamil Zajaczkowski / Shutterstock.com

The company Bridge, acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in 2024, issues OUSD and provides monthly updates on its reserves. BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY Mellon manage these reserves. Open USD launched on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo. The organization behind OUSD, Open Standard, reports that its partner network has grown to over 200 companies, up from 140 in June.

OUSD stands out for its business model. Unlike Tether and Circle, which issue USDC and keep most of the interest income from their reserves, OUSD shares most of that revenue with its partners. These partners receive earnings based on their participation, and they can create and redeem tokens at $1 without any fees.

Essentially, this turns the companies distributing OUSD into stakeholders. As Open Standard CEO Zach Abrams explains, “Every other stablecoin is building a fund. We’re building money.”

Open USD Starts With $1 Billion Against Tether’s $184 Billion

A white background candlestick chart showing Bitcoin's price against the U.S. Dollar on a 2-hour interval from the BITSTAMP exchange. The chart displays numerous green and red candlesticks, indicating price movements with values ranging approximately from $32,000 to $70,000 on the vertical axis. Below the price chart, there are vertical green and red bars representing trading volume. A red box on the right side highlights the current price at $38,944.31.

TradingView/Wealth of Geeks

OUSD is significantly smaller than established players. As of October 4, Tether’s USDT has a market cap of around $184 billion, while USDC stands at about $74 billion, and Ripple’s RLUSD has reached approximately $2.5 billion.

No circulating supply for OUSD was initially reported. However, Tempo, one of the blockchains supporting it, noted that OUSD trading liquidity exceeded $400 million on its first day, indicating strong initial interest, though it has not yet revealed the number of holders.

Tether and Circle built their market presence primarily through crypto trading, as traders looked for dollar alternatives to facilitate transactions. This existing habit helped them establish extensive markets that a new entrant cannot replicate overnight. However, OUSD is starting within the financial systems that handle payments directly, leveraging card networks and Shopify stores, where USDT and USDC have minimal influence. This market includes many of the 35% of Americans who now own cryptocurrency.

USDC Faces the Biggest Threat From Open USD, and RLUSD Gets a Payments Rival

USDC price symbol. A brick block with arrow symbolizing that USD coin index price are going down or up. Beautiful wooden table blue background. Business and gold price concept. Copy space.

LuFeTa / Shutterstock.com

Among established tokens, USDC faces the biggest risk from Open USD. Circle already splits reserve income with its distributors, and since Coinbase benefits from USDC revenue and is also an OUSD partner, it can promote whichever token offers them more profit.

Adding pressure is Visa’s involvement; the company has been working on settlement programs using USDC, while it now supports a rival that shares its revenue. So far, Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe have not committed to using OUSD for default merchant or card transactions, yet doing so could significantly boost its usage.

Ripple’s RLUSD also faces a different set of challenges. Ripple sells RLUSD to banks and payment institutions for cross-border transactions, just the type of customers that OUSD’s partners are already accommodating. With OUSD backed by major players like Visa and Mastercard, institutions assessing payment networks will have to consider this strong competitor.

Is the Open USD Stablecoin a Challenge to Tether, USDC and RLUSD?

In conclusion, Open USD is primarily a concern for USDC, challenging RLUSD’s market appeal, while Tether’s lead in crypto trading remains unaffected in the short term. OUSD’s profit-sharing structure could incentivize Coinbase, Visa, and other partners to favor it over USDC, potentially pulling more business away from Circle.

For XRP holders (CRYPTO:XRP), the fate of RLUSD primarily relates to Ripple’s business developments and does not directly influence XRP’s value.

The clearest sign of Open USD’s impact will be how it is used for settlements. If Visa, Mastercard, or Stripe start processing payments in OUSD by default, or if OUSD’s supply grows into the tens of billions by mid-2027, the competitive landscape for all three established stablecoins could shift dramatically.

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Sam Daodu

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing

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