PayPal Lives Up to Promise, Releases Its Own Stablecoin

Summary:
• PayPal USD will be available initially to PayPal account holders in the United States, but will likely spread to the rest of the world.

Global payment processor PayPal has launched a new cryptocurrency stablecoin dubbed PayPal USD (PYUSD). The coin is issued by Paxos Trust Co. and is pegged to the US dollar, which will be backed 100% by US dollar deposits, short-term Treasuries, and other highly liquid assets. According to a press release by PayPal, clients in the United States will soon have access to the newly-launched stablecoin.

How you can get PayPalUSD and what you can use it for

PayPal account holders in the United States and will henceforth be eligible to buy PayPal USD. In addition, they will soon be able to convert any of PayPal’s supported cryptocurrencies into PayPal USD and vice versa, send payments to other PayPal users using PYUSD, and pay for goods and services online using PYUSD by selecting it at checkout2. Also, they will be able to transfer PYUSD between their PayPal and compatible external wallets.

Today’s announcement is the culmination of an announcement by PayPal in January 2022 that it would be launching a cryptocurrency stablecoin and that it would be developing the stablecoin in close cooperation with appropriate regulators. Furthermore, the introduction of a stablecoin may serve as a catalyst in making the company a major player in the cryptocurrency payments market. Most existing stablecoin volume is used in web3-specific environments. In line with this, PayPal USD will be interoperable with that ecosystem from day one and will soon be available on Venmo.

In addition to being used to fuel experiences within the PayPal ecosystem, PayPal USD, as an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, will be accessible to a rapidly growing community of third-party developers, wallets, and web3 applications.

PayPal says that PayPal USD, the only stablecoin accepted within the PayPal network, combines the company’s decades-long expertise in mass payments with blockchain technology’s low transaction fees, low production costs, and high levels of programmability. Considering PayPal’s massive hold on the global payments processing market, millions of consumers, retailers, and programmers can look forward to using PayPal USD, starting with those in the United States, and likely including the rest of the global market in the near future.