The Core Team behind the project announced a partnership on X with Open Standard just as the latter’s Open USD (OUSD) stablecoin went live with heavyweight backing from the likes of Visa, Coinbase, Mastercard, and Stripe.
The most interesting part for Pioneers is that the collaboration could eventually bring OUSD-based rewards and additional utility in the broader Pi ecosystem.
What Is Pi Planning?
The intriguing portions of Pi Network’s announcement begin with the timing, which came hours after OUSD officially went live on September 30. Businesses and developers can now integrate the dollar-pegged asset through infrastructure from Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase, while the stablecoin is natively available on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Tempo. It has already been launched through exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Uniswap.
Open Standard has grown considerably since CryptoPotato first covered the project in late June, when more than 140 companies had signed up to participate. It now says its network includes over 200 financial institutions, fintechs, banks, and global businesses.
Its founding partners include the four giants mentioned above and Shopify, which have committed more than $1 billion in near-term launch liquidity. OUSD itself is issued by Stripe’s Bridge, with reserves held at BlackRock, Lead Bank, and BNY Mellon. All of this makes Pi’s announcement significantly more impactful to its community and raises some major questions, even though there aren’t too many details yet.
Stablecoin Rewards Coming?
Open Standard uses a different economic model from most major stablecoin players. Participating partners can earn rewards based on the OUSD supply and activity they generate on their platforms, while they can also become eligible to earn equity in Open Standard.
Pi has not yet explained exactly how any Pioneer reward program would work, who would qualify, or when it might launch. Nor has it confirmed that OUSD will become natively supported on its blockchain, so we shouldn’t assume such an integration from the partnership announcement alone.
What has been highlighted is still very narrow but notable: Pi Network and Open Standard are exploring ways to bring OUSD-created rewards and broader utility to Pi’s vast user ecosystem.
For a project that has spent much of the past year and a half trying to expand beyond simply holding and transferring the native token, that could represent a more meaningful step toward increasing real-world activity inside the network. For now, though, the details are scarce but we will make sure to cover them once they are live.
Source: CryptoPotato
