OpenUSD Goes Live With Five Founding Partners

A payments stablecoin tied to a set of large companies went live at the end of September, and the accounts of the money behind the launch do not use the same sentence. The OpenUSD OUSD stablecoin launch September 30 2026 is the event CoinDesk, writing that day, and Unchained both describe. American Banker, writing on 1 October, confirms that it is live.

What happened

OUSD went live on Wednesday 30 September on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo. That four-network list is from CoinDesk and Unchained. A stablecoin, in plain words, is a token meant to hold a steady value so it can be moved more like money than like a coin whose price swings. Going live on a network means the token can be held and transferred there.

Naming four networks means the launch was not confined to a single chain. Tempo is one of the four. These accounts do not, in the facts used here, add a fifth chain.

American Banker's 1 October piece confirms the token is live. It is a next-day check, not a different launch date.

CoinDesk and Unchained name the five founding partners as Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa. Founding partners are the firms those two outlets attach to the project at the start. The partner list should stay with the outlets that stated it. American Banker, in the facts used here, is the confirmation that the stablecoin is live.

Coinbase access starts 1 October. That timing is from Unchained and American Banker. A token can exist on a chain before a particular firm opens a door to it. The door these two outlets date is the day after the 30 September go-live.

Unchained and American Banker say Bridge issues OUSD. An issuer is the firm that creates the token. The same two outlets say reserves are at BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY.

Reserves, in plain words, are assets held against the tokens so the steady value has something behind it. Bridge is the issuer. The other three names are where the reserves sit, not a second list of issuers.

The size of the backing is where the wording splits, and the split should be kept. CoinDesk says the five committed more than $1 billion to liquidity over the coming months. Unchained says the founders are putting up more than $1 billion to seed supply. American Banker says they provided $1 billion of initial liquidity.

Those are three claims. More than $1 billion over the coming months is not the same sentence as more than $1 billion to seed supply. Neither is the same sentence as $1 billion of initial liquidity, without the word "more." Collapsing them into one commitment would erase differences the outlets wrote.

CoinDesk and Unchained say the partner network is now more than 200, up from more than 140. A partner network is wider than the five founders. Both figures are floors, not exact headcounts.

The direction is up. The exact number of names is not in these accounts.

Why it matters

The launch is a multi-party stablecoin, not a single-firm token that later went looking for allies. These facts do not say how decisions among the five are made, and they do not include a voting agreement.

Who issues, and where reserves sit, are the questions a payments token has to answer before the partner list means much. Bridge is the issuer on the Unchained and American Banker accounts. The reserves are at BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY on those same accounts.

Naming where reserves are held is not the same as publishing a full breakdown of what the reserves contain. That breakdown is not in the facts used here.

The three liquidity sentences matter because a single number would be easier, and the record does not quite give one. CoinDesk's line looks forward across the coming months. Unchained's line is money put up to seed supply.

American Banker's line is initial liquidity provided, in the past tense, at $1 billion rather than more than $1 billion. All three can be reported. They cannot be averaged.

The network count is a separate scale fact from CoinDesk and Unchained. More than 200, up from more than 140, says the circle widened. It does not say what each partner does. Coinbase's 1 October access date is the distribution clock these accounts set.

Related reading: Circle reserves review and Florida stablecoin licensing.

What's next

The dated items already in these stories are the 30 September go-live and the 1 October start of Coinbase access. Nothing in the three accounts sets a further public deadline. CoinDesk's liquidity line looks to the coming months without naming the last month. That horizon stays as CoinDesk wrote it.

Until later statements pick one money wording, the accurate report is the triple one. The five committed more than $1 billion to liquidity over the coming months, CoinDesk says. The founders are putting up more than $1 billion to seed supply, Unchained says. They provided $1 billion of initial liquidity, American Banker says.

The chain list and the founder list are stable across the outlets that state them: Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo, and Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa. Bridge as issuer, and reserves at BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY, rest on Unchained and American Banker. The partner count rests on CoinDesk and Unchained.

The pieces to read are CoinDesk's account of the launch, Unchained's account, and American Banker's confirmation that it is live. Together they support a live token, a named issuer, named reserve holders, five founding partners, and a liquidity story that still depends on which sentence is quoted.