PayPal’s stock rallied 2% in the hours after the internet payments pioneer announced its PYUSD stablecoin on Ethereum, a respectable gain for a late-stage, slow-growth tech company. However, the crypto industry’s two wolves – money crypto and tech crypto, regulation wanters and law-avoiders – have caused a bevy of imposter tokens to launch on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and various layer 2s.
It should be no surprise which wolf is dominant in PayPal, the side that wants to work from within the system, rather than outside, writes The Node newsletter. PYUSD, which is currently U.S.-only, will eventually be a near-universally accessible payments option subject to the same surveillance and censorship as PayPal or its subsidiary Venmo.
PayPal’s stablecoin may come with restrictions, says ex-PayPal comms director James Wester, but the company should be commended on its apparent commitment to transparency. The issuer of PayPal USD, Paxos, will publish a monthly reserve report starting in September.
A player like PayPal entering the field is material, for credibility, for access, for public education and to force everyone else to start grappling with the reality of blockchains and the types of commercial applications they enable, writes Austin Campbell, who formerly managed the BUSD stablecoin reserves at Paxos.
Though PayPal’s entire 435 million strong customer base does not yet have access to the stablecoin, the company may ultimately onboard more people into crypto than Coinbase. It’s not like the existence of PYUSD means bitcoin or ether or dai will disappear, writes The Node.