Open USD supply on Ethereum tops $100M in its first week

Open USD (OUSD), the new stablecoin issued by Stripe subsidiary Bridge, just had a very good first week on Ethereum. Its market cap on the network climbed from about $10 million to more than $100 million in roughly seven days.

The growth was driven largely by minting from the project’s founding partners. That partner list reads like the guest roster at a payments industry gala: Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa.

How OUSD got to $100 million on Ethereum

The rise on Ethereum is one piece of a bigger debut. OUSD’s total supply across all chains reached roughly $666 million to $722 million within days of launch. On-chain data put the figure at about $666.3 million by October 5, 2026.

Ethereum was not the main stage at first. At launch, 71% of OUSD’s supply lived on the Tempo blockchain, while about 9% sat on Ethereum.

Ethereum’s share then grew quickly. Supply on the network went from the low double-digit millions to over $100 million by early October, tracking heavy partner-driven minting. Placements with institutions and market makers added to the climb.

Activity numbers also look healthy at first glance. OUSD logged $2.6 billion in transfer volume as of October 5. The token had somewhere between 554 and 613 holders at that point.

Those two figures together say a lot. Billions of dollars moved, but only a few hundred addresses held the coin. That is the profile of institutional plumbing, not a retail frenzy.

A heavyweight consortium with a concentration problem

OUSD is the product of Open Standard, a group whose founding partners hold equal equity stakes. Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa collectively committed over $1 billion in initial liquidity to get the stablecoin off the ground.

The coin is fiat-backed, meaning each token is supposed to be matched by real dollars or equivalents held in reserve. OUSD’s reserves are held at BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY Mellon. Those reserves support its $1 peg.

Businesses can mint and redeem OUSD on a 1:1 basis. There are no transaction fees and no volume limits on either side of that process.

The token is already available on Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap. It is also accessible through Stripe, Visa and Mastercard.

On-chain data showed that 10 wallets held approximately 74% of OUSD’s total supply.

Decentralized exchange trading has been thin as well. Across all chains, DEX volume came to roughly $4.1 million in the first six days after launch.

Compare that with the $2.6 billion in transfer volume. Plenty of money is moving between wallets, but very little of it is being traded on open markets.

What this means for traders, issuers and Ethereum

The most important signal from OUSD’s first week is who is using it. A large transfer volume, a small holder count and heavy wallet concentration all point to institutions and partners doing the early heavy lifting.

For traders, concentration cuts both ways. When 10 wallets control roughly 74% of supply, decisions by a few holders could swing liquidity on a given chain. Thin DEX activity also means slippage risk for anyone trying to trade larger amounts on decentralized venues.

The flip side is that redemption at 1:1 without fees or limits gives institutional holders a clean exit. That mechanism, combined with reserves at BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY Mellon, is designed to keep the peg anchored even if on-chain trading stays light.

Several metrics will tell the real story over the coming weeks. Watch whether the holder count climbs well beyond the 554 to 613 range. Watch whether the share held by the top 10 wallets falls from around 74%. And watch whether DEX volume grows beyond the roughly $4.1 million recorded in the first six days.