The Open Standard OUSD U.S. Dollar Stablecoin in Now Live (Open Standard)
[September 30, 2026] Open Standard launched its Open USD (OUSD) U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. The founding five (Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa) have reportedly committed to minting $1 billion worth of OUSD to seed initial liquidity, and each received an equal initial equity stake. OUSD is issued by Bridge, a Stripe company, and runs natively on Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo, with reserves held at BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY. Reserve attestations will be published monthly at reserves.bridge.xyz/ousd. Businesses can mint and redeem OUSD 1:1 against the dollar through BVNK, Stripe, and the Visa Stablecoin Platform. [Open Standard]
How Central Banks Can Win the Digital Currency Race (CSIS)
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a paper by Luck, Gray and Hu arguing central banks treat adoption, sovereignty, and security as independent variables, generating secure but underutilized retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Evaluating failed pilots against successful fast-payment systems (FPSs), the report suggests mass adoption requires sub-incumbent pricing and permissive nonbank access built upon a central bank-managed settlement layer, as seen with Brazil’s Pix and India’s UPI. However, advanced economy central banks are systemically constrained from providing this utility by the risk of disintermediating commercial banks. But rather than resolving this retail CBDC design trilemma, the authors pivot to advocating for central bank-coordinated FPSs, leaving the question of how to design a successful retail CBDC unanswered. [CSIS]
BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.
FYI I produce a monthly digest of digital fiat currency (DFC) developments exclusively for the official sector (e.g., central banks, ministries of finance and international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank)) plus academics and firms that are active in the DFC space (commercial banks, technology providers, consultants, etc.). (DFCs include central bank digital currency (CBDC), stablecoins and tokenized deposits.) It goes out via email on the first business day of every month, and if you’re interested in being on the mailing list, please email me at john@kiffmeister.com.
