Open Standard’s stablecoin OUSD has reached a circulating market cap of $825 million just three weeks after launch, giving the Stripe-backed initiative an unusually strong start. But PANews said the token’s early on-chain footprint still looks far more institutional than retail.
As of now, OUSD has only about 2,200 independent holder addresses, while the top 10 wallets control roughly 82% of circulating supply. Over the same period, total on-chain transfer volume hit $3.7 billion, with 271,200 transfers and an average transaction size of about $14,000. Taken together, those figures suggest early growth has been driven mainly by capital allocation and infrastructure transfers rather than broad consumer use.
$825 million in circulation within three weeks
Open Standard officially launched OUSD on Sept. 30, with Stripe subsidiary Bridge serving as issuer. On the same day, five founding partners including Stripe, Coinbase and Visa committed to mint about $1 billion worth of OUSD.
By Oct. 20, OUSD’s circulating market cap had climbed to $825 million. Net minting reached $898 million, while redemptions totaled only $73 million, leaving the token in what PANews described as an almost one-way net inflow phase.
Distribution across chains also shows where that early scale came from. Tempo, the chain led by Stripe, accounts for 64.1% of OUSD’s circulating market cap. Ethereum holds 15.1%, while Solana and Base together make up only 20%, or about $170 million.
That matters because Solana and Base are both known for active DeFi and high-frequency trading activity. PANews said OUSD’s relatively small footprint on those networks may indicate that growth has not been driven primarily by native on-chain demand, but by targeted liquidity injections from the project’s backers.
Top 10 wallets hold about 82% of supply
Holder concentration reinforces that picture. OUSD currently has about 2,200 independent holder addresses, and the top 10 wallets together hold around 82% of supply. The largest single address alone accounts for nearly 38%.
Based on those figures, PANews estimated that the average capital parked per address is about $375,000, a structure dominated by large holders rather than a broad user base.
During the first three weeks, OUSD recorded $3.7 billion in on-chain transfer volume across 271,200 transactions. The combination of high throughput, a small holder base and large average transfer size points to infrastructure settlement and batch allocation activity, with retail participation still limited.
Liquidity data offers another clue. OUSD has posted about $7.7 million in DEX trading volume against roughly $57 million in DeFi total value locked, implying capital utilization of just 13.51%. In practical terms, more than 80% of OUSD appears to be sitting in wallets rather than moving through active use cases.
Liquidity is concentrated as well. Morpho accounts for 71.14% of the total, with TVL rising from zero to more than $35 million in three weeks. Orca and Uniswap account for 18.65% and 10.21%, respectively. PANews said the flow of funds into lending protocols to earn yield looks like classic capital allocation behavior.
Fast cold start, but adoption remains an open question
Stablecoin growth depends heavily on solving the cold-start problem. PANews said OUSD’s supply in its first three weeks was about 33 times that of USDG at the same stage, 6.5 times that of PYUSD, and 2.5 times that of U.
The report compared several launch models now visible in the market.
USDG: exchange distribution
USDG, another consortium-style stablecoin, took a more direct route by embedding itself into the infrastructure of exchanges including OKX, Robinhood and Kraken. That approach reduces the need for additional user education.
On-chain data shows that X Layer and Robinhood Chain alone hold about $2 billion in USDG, accounting for more than 65% of the network total. Exchange access remains one of the strongest growth engines for stablecoins.
PYUSD: payment use cases
PayPal’s PYUSD followed a different path. Despite PayPal’s large user base, the token’s early market cap at one point remained below $200 million. Growth accelerated only after the token expanded to Solana in May 2024 and later moved into payment scenarios such as YouTube creator payouts and Visa cross-border remittances late last year.
That sequence suggests that a payment brand’s user base does not automatically convert into stablecoin scale. On-chain ecosystems and real applications still need to be built out step by step.
U: trading-led expansion
U, backed by the Binance ecosystem, followed a crypto-native route by moving directly into centralized exchange and DeFi liquidity hubs. On its first day, it integrated with DeFi protocols including Aster and PancakeSwap. Binance then listed major trading pairs and rolled out zero-fee campaigns, helping the token gain traction through trading demand and liquidity mining.
Its on-chain activity rose quickly, reaching daily trading volume in the hundreds of millions of dollars and pushing market cap to $1.6 billion. PANews noted that this model depends heavily on trading incentives, which can leave retention and stability weaker.
OUSD: consortium capital support
OUSD represents a fourth model. It was launched by an alliance of payment giants, card networks and exchanges, and scaled rapidly through directed capital injections from founding partners. Its strengths are a high starting point, deep resources and stronger institutional trust. Its weaknesses are also clear: no obvious DeFi incentive program aimed at retail users, and no support yet from major spot trading pairs on top-tier centralized exchanges.
In PANews’ framing, OUSD has solved the problem of going from zero to $800 million. The harder question is whether it can move from $800 million to $8 billion on the back of real payment, trading and lending demand.
Stablecoins still face heavy operating costs
The report said the bigger issue may be business economics rather than headline growth. Stablecoins are often seen as easy carry trades built on reserve yield, but Circle’s latest earnings show a much more expensive model.
In the first half of this year, Circle recorded about $1.4 billion in revenue. PANews broke down the economics of each $1 of stablecoin revenue as follows:
- 59 cents to channels: $819 million went to distribution partner sharing and transaction costs.
- 34 cents to infrastructure: $473 million was reinvested into compliance, infrastructure, liquidity support and network development.
- 7 cents in net profit: net income came to about $103 million, leaving only $0.07 in pure profit for every $1 of revenue.
The report also pointed to a less visible cost: redemption liquidity. To maintain around-the-clock, near real-time two-way fiat convertibility and prepare for stress scenarios, Circle must keep large amounts of low-yield buffer capital at major settlement banks and absorb the cost of moving funds across institutions.
PANews said OUSD is likely to face a similar cost structure. Bridge is the underlying issuer, while custodians include BlackRock and Bank of New York Mellon. Compliance requirements, settlement standards, anti-money laundering monitoring, reserve audits, interbank settlement and cross-chain operations all come with ongoing expense.
A rough yield calculation leaves limited room
Using a simple estimate based on $800 million in supply and a 5% annualized reserve yield, PANews said OUSD would generate about $40 million in annual gross reserve income. If the operator retained only 7% as profit, just $2.8 million a year would remain available to cover costs.
The report argued that this would be far from enough to support a full compliance and operations stack. Rate risk would make the picture even tighter. Every 1 percentage point drop in reserve yield would cut annual gross income by $8 million at the same supply level.
For a stablecoin model built on interest spread, whether scale can offset lower rates will directly shape whether the business works.
There is also the issue of partner loyalty. PANews noted that major OUSD distribution partners are not exclusive. Coinbase is one of OUSD’s backers, but it is also a major shareholder in USDC and the largest beneficiary of USDC revenue sharing. Visa sits on OUSD’s governance board while also using USDC extensively in settlement for Visa Direct.
For those firms, OUSD is another option rather than the only one. Distribution resources may shift toward whichever stablecoin offers better economics, stronger liquidity or a better user experience. That kind of relationship can help scale a token quickly in favorable conditions, but it can also turn quickly if costs rise or incentives diverge.
Scale is a starting point, not a moat
PANews said the first phase of stablecoin competition centered on whether reserves were real and transparent. In a more mature market, the contest shifts toward controlling compliance and liquidity costs and gaining bargaining power over distribution channels.
For a stablecoin that has been live for only three weeks, $825 million in circulation is a strong opening. But scale alone is not a moat. OUSD’s next test is whether it can turn backing from major financial and payments players into durable payment, trading and lending use cases, and into a stable channel position.
An early lead may help at the start. Whether the model can produce sustainable economics is what will determine how long it lasts in an increasingly crowded stablecoin market.
