Visa, Stripe & Coinbase Launch New Shared Stablecoin: Open USD

Over 140 major companies team up to create Open USD, a digital dollar that shares its earnings with partner businesses.

More than 140 of the world's biggest companies are joining forces to launch a brand-new digital dollar. Names like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Google and Coinbase have signed up to create something called Open USD (OUSD).

First, the basics: a stablecoin is a type of digital currency (cryptocurrency) designed to always be worth the same as a real-world currency — in this case, $1 US dollar. Unlike Bitcoin, whose price jumps up and down, a stablecoin stays steady, making it useful for payments.

What makes Open USD different? When a company issues a stablecoin, it holds real money or safe investments as backing — these are called reserves. Those reserves earn interest. Normally, the company keeps all that money. But Open USD plans to share most of those earnings with the businesses that use it (after taking a small management fee).

Here are the key facts:

140+ companies have joined the group, called Open Standard
Big payment networks: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover
Major financial firms: BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, U.S. Bank
Tech giants: Google, Shopify, IBM
Crypto companies: Coinbase, Ripple, OKX, MetaMask, Bybit
Expected to launch later this year

Businesses will be able to create ("mint") and cash out ("redeem") Open USD with no fees or limits. Instead of one company being in charge, Open USD will be run by an independent organization, with decisions shared among the partner companies — a setup called shared governance.

Stripe's technology president said the goal is for Open USD to become the default stablecoin for businesses using Stripe. A company called Tempo says Open USD will run on its blockchain network (the digital record-keeping system behind cryptocurrencies) from day one.

In short: This is a major sign that traditional finance and crypto are blending together. With so many heavyweight names behind it, Open USD could become one of the most widely used digital dollars in the world.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.theblock.co/post/406736/visa-stripe-coinbase-join-open-usd-stablecoin-shares-reserve-revenue?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss