PayPal Starts Its Own Crypto Coin

The topic of cryptocurrencies has lost some of its momentum in the media in recent months, with both positive and negative news. However, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer an issue. On the contrary, PayPal now takes care of that with its own stablecoin.

PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin launched

The payment giant PayPal is an integral part of today’s Internet, thanks largely to the fact that the company guarantees and ensures, among other things, that you get your money back if a transaction goes wrong. This customer trust will certainly also be used as a basis for the new cryptocurrency that was launched yesterday.

As the Reuters news agency reports, the PayPal cryptocurrency is a so-called stable coin. This should promise security and prevent wild price fluctuations, i.e. the so-called volatility, since such coins are linked to “stable” reserve assets such as the dollar or gold. In the case of PayPal, it is the US currency.

The PayPal currency is appropriately named PayPal USD (PYUSD) and can be exchanged one-for-one for dollars. The company explains in a statement: PYUSD can be used to make person-to-person payments, pay for purchases at the (digital) checkout using the currency, and transfer PYUSD between PayPal and other external wallets. The company states that there are no fees to buy, sell, hold, or transfer PYUSD to eligible US PayPal Balance accounts.

Flexibility and Security

In other words, a stablecoin like PayPal USD (which is based or built on Ethereum) wants to combine the flexibility of crypto with the stability of a classic currency. This idea is not new, but it has not yet caught on in the mass market.

PayPal, of course, hopes to change that: “The shift to digital currencies requires a robust instrument that is both digitally native and easily connectable to fiat currencies like the dollar,” said Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal. “Our commitment to responsible innovation and compliance, as well as our successes in delivering new experiences for our customers, is the foundation to contribute to the growth of digital payments with PayPal USD.”