- Mastercard announced support for Open USD (OUSD) along with a major consortium of more than 140 companies, including Visa, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, and others.
- Open USD is a new regulated stablecoin for businesses with no mint or redeem fees. It also includes a shared revenue from reserves.
- The launch of Open USD comes at a time when Mastercard is expanding its footprint in the stablecoin market.
On June 30, Mastercard, a leading payment network, announced support for Open USD, a new stablecoin designed for the internet economy, along with other payment companies like Visa, Stripe, and more than 140 major companies.
On Tuesday, Open Standard, an independent company supported by a big consortium, announced the launch of Open USD. The launch of Open USD will provide businesses with a better alternative to regulated USD-backed digital currency.
Mastercard has joined the project as a leading partner, along with other major entities like Visa, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, American Express, Google, and others. It also includes major Japanese banks like Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho, along with other blockchain-based platforms like Aave.
Zach Abrams, Founding CEO of Open Standard, stated in the official announcement, “Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that’s open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests. We’re thrilled to bring together over 140 businesses to launch Open USD. It’s a stablecoin built for the internet economy, designed by the businesses growing it.”
The main purpose behind the launch of Open USD is to boost the large-scale use of stablecoins by companies by moving beyond traders or consumers. One of the impressive features of OUSD is that there will be no mint or redeem fees. Apart from this, there are no volume caps. It also shares the economics of the reserves with partner companies after operational costs.
What is Open USD?
Open USD is a fiat-backed stablecoin pegged to the USD, which will be fully backed by reserves such as short-term Treasuries or other safe assets. OUSD is designed to target global payments and settlements. It is especially designed for businesses in e-commerce, remittances, cross-border trade, and AI and agentic commerce.
OUSD will be launched on multiple blockchains such as Solana, Stellar, Base, Polygon, and Stripe’s Tempo. This large ecosystem of OUSD will allow businesses to make cheap transactions while ensuring easy integration into existing systems. Instead of focusing on retail or DeFi trading, Open USD will focus on B2B utility, interoperability, and partner revenue sharing in order to boost the adoption of stablecoins among financial institutions.
According to the official announcement, Open USD will provide direct yield generation for partners.
Samara Cohen, Global Head of Market Development at BlackRock, said that “We believe stablecoins can play an important role in the evolution of digital markets when supported by trusted infrastructure and practical utility. Open USD is a constructive step toward giving businesses more choice in how they access tokenized value and participate in internet native digital rails.”
Mastercard Expands Stablecoin Footprint Through Open USD
The rise of stablecoins has forced many traditional payment companies to integrate USD-pegged stablecoins into the existing financial infrastructure. To follow this trend, Mastercard has also stepped up to adopt blockchain-based innovations. In March, Mastercard announced the acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK in a deal of around $1.8 billion in order to connect on-chain and fiat rails.
Mastercard has also been expanding its support for various stablecoins. In June 2026, the company expanded its settlement capabilities to support regulated stablecoins like USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD, and SoFiUSD across various blockchains. The purpose behind this expansion was to create support for intraday, weekend, and holiday settlements.
Apart from this, Mastercard also joined hands with Paxos’ Global Dollar Network, Fiserv, Thunes, Yellow Card, and others. By collaborating with such entities, the company plans various purposes for minting, payouts, and merchant use. It has also launched a Crypto Partner Program with more than 100 companies, including Circle, Solana, and Binance.
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