Author: Aave Labs
Date: 9/30/26
Summary
This ARFC proposes onboarding Open USD (OUSD), a USD-backed stablecoin issued by Open Standard, to the Aave V3 Core Instance on Ethereum and to the Aave V4 Core Hub on Ethereum.
At launch, OUSD is proposed as a supply and borrow asset only, with collateral usage disabled on both deployments. Collateral enablement, higher caps, and E-Mode or additional Spoke configurations can be revisited through separate proposals once OUSD has established onchain liquidity and price history.
Motivation
OUSD is a stablecoin backed by cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries, governed by a partner board drawn from a consortium of 200+ companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, and Aave. Unlike most fiat-backed stablecoins, OUSD returns the large majority of reserve income to the partners that adopt and distribute it, with Open Standard retaining a small management fee. Minting and redemption carry no fees and no volume caps for partners.
Onboarding OUSD to Aave’s core markets offers the DAO:
- New stablecoin liquidity: OUSD’s distribution model gives payment networks, fintechs, and exchanges a direct economic incentive to grow supply. Listing on Aave’s core markets positions Aave as the primary onchain venue for OUSD lending from day one.
- Borrowing demand for a new dollar asset: Borrowable OUSD gives existing Aave users another stablecoin to borrow against their current collateral, and gives OUSD holders a native yield venue.
- Alignment with the Aave ecosystem: Aave is an Open Standard launch partner. OUSD is also proposed as a borrowable asset in the Sentora Externally Curated Hub on Aave V4. Listing OUSD in DAO-managed markets ensures OUSD liquidity also grows on the Aave DAO’s own Hubs, not only in externally curated instances.
- Revenue: Reserve factor and liquidity fee income from OUSD borrowing accrues to the Aave DAO.
Asset Overview
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Asset | Open USD |
| Ticker | OUSD |
| Type | Fiat-backed payment stablecoin, pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar |
| Issuer | Bridge Building Inc (“BBI”), a subsidiary of Bridge Ventures, LLC, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stripe, LLC. BBI issues, redeems and maintains OUSD under contract with Open Standard LLC, the program company that runs the OUSD program and its governance. Open Standard is not the issuer. |
| Regulatory status | BBI is registered with FinCEN as a money services business and holds state money transmitter licenses, under which it issues OUSD (list: New US Licenses and Registrations). Issuance is expected to transition to Bridge National Trust Bank, which received preliminary conditional OCC approval on 12 February 2026, once it obtains final approval and commences operations; token contracts and addresses do not change. OUSD is designed as a U.S. dollar payment stablecoin under the GENIUS Act. |
| Backing | Cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries and qualifying money market funds, held in a GENIUS-compliant manner. OUSD is backed at least 1:1. |
| Reserve custodians | Lead Bank and BNY provide reserve banking for reserve cash; BlackRock is the Treasury reserve manager. Reserve accounts are held separately from the issuer’s own operating funds and titled for the benefit of OUSD holders. The issuer controls allocations. |
| Attestations | EY, monthly. Attestations cover reserve composition and reconciliation to outstanding OUSD. The first is expected at the end of the first month OUSD is live to the public. |
| Mint / redeem | No mint or redeem fee; 1:1. No minimum and no maximum size per mint or redeem. Minting is limited only by reserve value; redemptions are limited to 10% of outstanding OUSD supply in any 24-hour period. Available 24/7, 365 days, with FedNow, to entities that have completed KYB with an integrator (Bridge, BVNK, Coinbase or the Visa Stablecoin Platform). |
| Network | Ethereum (ERC-20). OUSD is also issued natively on Base, Solana and Tempo, with no bridged representations. |
| Contract address | 0x9f6F3991D525015a6F8CaF062C83b62fD3AC4436 |
| Decimals | 6 |
| Upgradeability / admin | Upgradeable. Upgrade is a privileged function held by the issuer, alongside mint, burn, pause/unpause, freeze/seize and allowlist/denylist. The issuer’s keys are globally distributed and require cryptographic multiparty approval; Bridge uses Fireblocks for MPC-based key management. |
| Freeze / blacklist | Yes. The issuer holds freeze/seize, allowlist/denylist and pause/unpause functions and is the sole party able to freeze, seize or blacklist. The token relies on an external policy and authorisation registry that can gate transfers and minting. Bridge operates documented freeze, seize and blacklist processes compliant with GENIUS rules. |
| Smart contract audits | Zenith audited the issuer’s stablecoin template, its authorisation registry, the Solana token authority and related repositories in five reports: EVM, dated 15 July 2025, 14 August 2025, 26 November 2025 and 18 February 2026; and Solana, dated 20 January 2026. There is no OUSD-specific audit of the deployed contracts. |
| Bug bounty | TBC |
| Oracle | TBC |
Specification
Parameters and Oracles will be populated once recommendations are provided by LlamaRisk, and Chainlink price feeds are live in production.
Useful Links
- Open Standard: https://joinopenstandard.com/
- Reserve attestations: Open USD (OUSD) | Bridge
- Ethereum Smart Contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x9f6F3991D525015a6F8CaF062C83b62fD3AC4436
Disclosure
Aave Labs is an Open Standard partner. Aave Labs has not received and will not receive any compensation or reserve income tied to OUSD distribution.
Next Steps
- Publish this ARFC for community and service provider feedback, including risk parameter recommendations from LlamaRisk.
- If sentiment is positive, submit the ARFC to Snapshot for a vote.
- If the Snapshot passes, submit an AIP with final parameters for onchain governance approval and execution.
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.