Open Standard, the governance entity behind the OpenUSD (OUSD) stablecoin, has set a fee of 0.1 basis points on payment volume, capped at $0.01 per transaction, according to private documents seen by CoinDesk. The entity is also opening an equity earn-in pool for partners based on their OUSD holdings and payment flows.
Fee structure
Open Standard will charge 0.1 basis points, or 0.001%, on payment transaction volume, with the charge topping out at $0.01 per transaction. Any payment over $1,000 pays the full one-cent cap, while smaller payments pay in proportion to their size.
The fee is how revenue reaches Open Standard. Yield earned on OUSD reserves is passed along to partners, minus the management fee. By contrast, Tether and Circle, the issuers behind USDT and USDC, primarily keep the interest income from their reserves for themselves.
Equity pool details
To qualify for the equity earn-in pool, a partner needs to hold at least $50 million in OUSD. Ownership through the pool is capped at 5% per partner, a ceiling that appears designed to prevent any single firm from buying its way into control of the governance entity.
The $50 million threshold shapes who benefits: large institutions can clear it easily, while smaller fintechs and merchants may find the equity pool out of reach. Smaller participants still get the low fee and access to the rails, but ownership is reserved for those able to commit serious capital.
Launch and partner network
OUSD launched on September 30, 2026, going live across four networks at once: Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, and Shopify each committed over $1 billion for launch liquidity. The partner network has since grown past 200 members.
Alongside the fee and earning pool materials, Visa released more than 100 pages of technical implementation and user guidance for partner firms.
Market implications
The stablecoin business has long run on a straightforward model: users hand over dollars, the issuer parks them in reserves, and the issuer pockets the interest. OUSD is betting that the businesses actually moving the money would rather keep that yield themselves.
The equity pool adds a second layer of incentive. A partner that routes significant payment flow through OUSD is not just a customer but a part-owner with a reason to keep that flow coming.
For Open Standard, a fee capped at one cent per payment means the entity needs enormous transaction counts to fund its operations, rather than relying on large individual transfers. For partners weighing whether to commit, the key variables to watch are the level of reserve yield actually distributed, how quickly firms clear the $50 million bar, and how the 5% ownership cap shapes governance as the pool fills.
