Zach Abrams launches OpenUSD to siphon Tether yields
- Zach Abrams launched OpenUSD with $1 billion from Visa, Stripe, and Coinbase.
- OpenUSD shares reserve interest with payment partners to drain Tether's monopoly.
- Spiral developer Ben Carmen added native Lightning support to Coinbase's X402 agent standard.
Zach Abrams wants to dismantle Tether's cash machine by paying off its distribution partners.
The former Stripe executive launched OpenUSD with a $1 billion liquidity promise from payment heavyweights including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Shopify, and Coinbase. Unlike Tether, which keeps every dollar earned on reserve holdings, OpenUSD distributes equity and reserve yield to institutional partners based on transaction volume.
On Presidio Bitcoin Jam on Sep 25, 2026, Spiral lead Steve Lee highlighted the tactical calculus behind the consortium. Coinbase already shares USDC reserve revenue with Circle through 2029, but joining OpenUSD gives the exchange access to enterprise transaction flows that USDC cannot reach.
"Joining OpenUSD allows Coinbase to capture volume from enterprise flows USDC might never touch."
- Steve Lee, Presidio Bitcoin Jam
For credit networks like Visa and Mastercard, backing an open stablecoin acts as a defensive strategy against disintermediation. As global settlement shifts toward blockchain rails, early participation in OpenUSD's governance layer lets traditional payment networks safeguard their transaction fees.
The fight for digital payment rails is simultaneously playing out in machine-to-machine commerce. Spiral developer Ben Carmen merged a pull request adding native Bitcoin support to Coinbase's X402 payment standard, bringing Lightning payments to HTTP web protocols alongside Block and Steve Lee.
On Presidio Bitcoin Jam, co-host Max argued that autonomous AI agents favor permissionless infrastructure like Lightning and Nostr over traditional rails. Autonomous bots operate without human user-experience bottlenecks like private key management, making instantaneous micro-settlement natural for machine actors.
Yet co-host DK warned that platform lock-in could suppress open standards. Proprietary AI agent frameworks like Muse and Instinct risk routing machine transaction traffic into closed corporate payment systems unless open-source agent ecosystems gain immediate market traction.
"Walled-garden agent interfaces like Muse or Instinct could direct agent traffic toward proprietary payment rails."
- DK, Presidio Bitcoin Jam
Tether's dominance survived years of regulatory pressure, but shared yields and machine payment protocols pose a direct threat to its corporate treasury.