Open USD launched as a new stablecoin, but the token is the least novel part of it. A dollar stablecoin backed by Treasury bills and cash is a commodity. What Open Standard is selling to Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, Shopify and more than 200 other partners is the OUSD reserve income split, a different division of the float, and that division is what the rest of the market will have to answer.
OUSD went live on September 30 on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Tempo. It is issued by Bridge Building Inc., a Stripe subsidiary, under contract with Open Standard, with reserves held at BlackRock, BNY and Lead Bank and attested monthly. Partners can mint and redeem it at no cost through Bridge on Stripe, BVNK and the Visa Stablecoin Platform, with Coinbase access from October 1.
The OUSD reserve income goes to partners
The design is simple. Under Open Standard’s launch terms, partners receive all reserve earnings less a small management fee. Bridge’s documentation describes the reward on its Treasury reserve product as roughly the effective federal funds rate minus 20 basis points. On top of the income, partners earn equity: chief executive Zach Abrams said the “overwhelming majority” of Open Standard’s shares will go to partners over four to five years, allocated by the supply and activity they generate.
Compare Circle. In the second quarter of 2026, Circle earned $667.7 million of reserve income on an average return of 3.5% and paid $410.4 million in distribution and transaction costs, leaving a 41% margin on revenue after those costs. Most of that distribution cost goes to Coinbase, which under the agreement renewed through 2029 receives all reserve income on USDC held on its platform and half of the residual elsewhere. Circle paid Coinbase $1.4 billion in 2025.
OUSD offers every partner something close to the Coinbase deal. That is a direct bid for the distributors that Circle and Tether both need.
The economics only work at scale
The split is generous because Open Standard has no float yet. At Circle’s 3.5% return, each $1 billion of OUSD earns about $35 million a year, and a 20 basis point fee leaves Open Standard about $2 million of it. Across more than 200 partners, $1 billion of supply pays each one very little. Tempo’s Dan Romero expects about $1 billion on Tempo within months and more than $10 billion during 2027. Even at $10 billion, OUSD would be smaller than USDC’s $74.3 billion or USDT’s $184.2 billion on October 5.
The equity is what makes small early balances worth holding. A partner that moves supply into OUSD now earns income it would earn elsewhere, plus a claim on the program’s future. The incentive favours partners with large balances to move, such as Stripe, which has made OUSD its default stablecoin, and the card networks’ own stablecoin platforms. Liquidity terms help too. There are no mint or burn fees, although a proposal to Aave governance says redemptions are capped at 10% of supply in any 24 hours, a limit large holders will price.
The yield rules decide how much partners can pass on
The risk sits in what partners do with the income. The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying holders interest or yield “solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention” of a stablecoin. Paying reserve income to distribution partners is allowed. Paying it on to end users is the contested part.
The Federal Reserve’s staff memo on its September 24 proposals says certain third-party arrangements will be presumed to be prohibited payments of yield, consistent with the OCC’s proposal. Stripe says partners earn rewards on OUSD activity, including balances held on Stripe. If a partner passes that reward to a business customer as a return on its balance, regulators may treat it as yield. The final rules will decide whether the OUSD split stays a wholesale arrangement or becomes a consumer product.
Bottom line
OUSD’s distinguishing feature is economic: partners take the float income and most of the equity. That pressures Circle’s distribution terms more than its token, and it only pays partners meaningfully once supply reaches tens of billions. The yield presumption in the federal proposals is the main threat to the model, because it decides whether partners can share the income with the businesses that hold the coin.
Watch for:
- Monthly attestations showing OUSD supply, and how much sits on Stripe
- Comment letters on the Fed’s proposals, due November 30, from OUSD partners
- Any change to Circle’s distribution terms outside Coinbase