PayPal was founded in 1998 and is an online third-party payment service provider. Elon Musk was one of the co-founders. Currently, PayPal is the largest third-party payment provider globally. In Taiwan, PayPal collaborates with Yuanta Bank, allowing users to withdraw US dollars or Taiwanese dollars from their PayPal accounts using Yuanta Bank’s Global Pass.
Since 2020, PayPal has entered the cryptocurrency market, allowing users to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies. The PayPal stablecoin, PYUSD (PayPal USD), was officially launched in August 2023. During the Consensus conference on May 29 this year, it was announced that PayPal had partnered with Solana. PYUSD currently ranks seventh in market value, with Paxos issuing it and a supply of 399 million US dollars (compared to USDT’s supply of 112 billion US dollars).
From 2020, PayPal’s blockchain development department began deploying cryptocurrency payment functions, allowing users to check out and pay with cryptocurrencies. Users can choose to pay with cryptocurrencies if they have them in their PayPal accounts. PayPal is gradually expanding its cryptocurrency e-commerce services and focusing on blockchain technology.
For US users, PayPal introduced the functionality to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies. PayPal collaborated with stablecoin issuer Paxos Technology to introduce cryptocurrency payment services (Checkout with Crypto) and expand them to the UK. This allows consumers to store and pay with cryptocurrencies on PayPal. Enabling cryptocurrency transfers on PayPal marks a new milestone in stablecoin mainstream e-commerce transactions.
PayPal and Venmo wallets feature user-friendly UI pages where users can send PYUSD on Ethereum or Solana. PYUSD supports Ledger cold wallets and MetaMask, allowing users to store PYUSD in them.
PayPal holds a virtual currency business license issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Paxos, the issuer, is also a government-chartered trust management company.
PYUSD (PayPal USD) follows the Ethereum ERC-20 standard and supports multiple blockchains. It is designed as a stablecoin system for Web3, supporting transactions with third-party exchanges, wallets, decentralized applications (dApps), and NFT markets. PYUSD helps developers integrate Web3 payment functions and serves as an interface for Web3 compatibility.
Developers can use PYUSD to develop their products, connecting traditional financial services with regulated and programmable cryptocurrencies. PayPal’s deployment of PYUSD also includes its use as a token for metaverse games, NFT trading, and more.
PYUSD aims at the global commercial market. At the Consensus conference on May 29, 2024, PayPal officially announced the integration of PYUSD with the Solana blockchain. This blockchain technology upgrade allows consumers to choose which blockchain they want to use PYUSD on. PayPal users and business owners can use PYUSD across fiat currencies, stablecoins, and multiple blockchains.
Solana blockchain is known for its low costs and high-speed processing of transactions. The choice of Solana’s token expansion technology for PYUSD stablecoin enables encrypted transmission of transactions, calling program hooks, and recording transfers, ensuring faster payments for commercial users requiring cross-border transactions.
Crypto.com, Phantom, and Paxos are the first to provide early users with the ability to use PYUSD on the Solana blockchain. The potential applications of the collaboration between PYUSD and Solana include driving Solana’s NFT market, developing Web3 games and metaverse, and e-commerce platforms. The collaboration between Solana Foundation and PayPal could usher in a new wave of token economy, combining game tokens, payment exchanges, and bringing global gamers and new users into PayPal.
By leveraging PayPal’s leading position in third-party payments and combining it with PYUSD wallet technology, integrating with X or other social media platforms to offer subscription payment features can bring more revenue to creators.