BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, Mastercard and 12 Other Firms Team Up to Launch OUSD Stablecoin
A group of major financial and crypto companies including BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, and Mastercard are joining forces to launch a new stablecoin called OUSD, built on the Open Standard platform. CoinGape
Key takeaways:
- BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, and a group of other financial firms are partnering to launch the OUSD stablecoin.
- Revenue generated from the stablecoin's reserves will be shared among the participating partners.
What makes this launch notable isn't just the roster of names behind it. It's the governance model. OUSD is structured as a shared-ownership system, where partner companies collectively benefit from the revenue generated by its reserves.
Why These Companies Are Building OUSD Together
According to a joint statement, the coalition of financial firms is preparing to launch OUSD later this year. Open Standard, the platform driving the initiative, pointed to a recurring problem in the stablecoin space: businesses still face steep costs when minting and redeeming most stablecoins at scale.
There's a second issue Open Standard called out, companies typically don't get to share in the revenue generated by a stablecoin's backing reserves. Developers face a related constraint: when a third-party issuer's roadmap or incentives don't line up with what they actually need, there's little room to push back or adjust.
OUSD's design addresses both of these directly, built around three core principles:
Zero-fee, unlimited minting and redemption. Businesses will be able to mint and redeem OUSD without fees and without volume caps.
Shared reserve revenue. Partners like BlackRock, Coinbase, and Mastercard will receive all revenue generated from the stablecoin's reserves, minus a small management fee to cover operational costs.
Shared governance. These partners will jointly govern the initiative through Open Standard's board made up of the partners themselves, making decisions in their collective interest.
This isn't the first time this group of companies has worked together on stablecoin infrastructure. Earlier this month, Ripple and Coinbase backed Mastercard's AI-agent payment system, which is also built around stablecoin rails.
What Partners Are Saying About the Initiative
Samara Cohen, BlackRock's global head of markets advisory, said stablecoins can play a meaningful role in the evolution of digital markets provided they're backed by reliable infrastructure and have real practical use. She framed OUSD as a step toward giving businesses more choice in how they access tokenized money and participate in internet-native digital infrastructure.
Shan Aggarwal, Coinbase's chief business officer, called stablecoins the most important thing currently happening in payments. His view: the more solid infrastructure the industry builds around OUSD collaboratively, the faster it can close the gap between where payments stand today and where they need to be.
Where OUSD Will Launch
Once live, OUSD is expected to launch on Layer-1 networks including Solana and Tempo. Solana has already confirmed it will support native issuance of OUSD from day one, emphasizing its focus on decentralized governance and zero fees for minting and redemption on the network.
Why This Matters for the Stablecoin Market
The OUSD structure is a departure from how most stablecoins currently operate, where the issuer alone typically captures reserve yield and sets the terms for large-scale minting and redemption. By spreading both revenue and governance across a coalition of major payment and crypto infrastructure players, OUSD is effectively testing whether a shared-ownership model can compete with the incumbent single-issuer approach.
If it gains traction particularly given the scale of the backers involved it could put pressure on existing stablecoin issuers to rethink fee structures and reserve-revenue sharing across the industry.
