PayPal’s United States dollar-pegged stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD) has integrated with the cross-blockchain bridging protocol LayerZero to enable transfers between Ethereum and Solana.
In a Nov. 12 statement, LayerZero said that PYUSD now uses its Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) Standard to enable the crosschain transfers, which will “enable users who self-custody their tokens to seamlessly transfer assets between blockchains — without needing to rely on centralized platforms like Venmo or PayPal.”
Source: LayerZero
PYUSD’s market capitalization and its distribution across the two blockchain networks have changed significantly in recent months.
On Aug. 26, PYUSD notched a record market cap of $1 billion, with over $660 million circulating on the Solana network, while just $340 million circulated on Ethereum.
As of the time of publication, the total market cap of PYUSD has nearly halved to $513 million, with just $166 million circulating on Solana, while $384 million is deployed on Ethereum, per DefiLlama data.
PYUSD circulation has surged on Ethereum. Source: DefiLlama
PayPal has been taking steps to expand PYUSD’s accessibility, including working with Anchorage Digital to launch a rewards program for clients who custody PayPal USD stablecoins with the crypto custodian.
In May, PayPal launched PYUSD on Solana, partnering with Crypto.com, Phantom, and Paxos to on-ramp users onto the blockchain network.
It also partnered with crypto infrastructure provider MoonPay to allow users to purchase cryptocurrency using a PayPal account. That partnership extended to on-ramping users to crypto betting platform Polymarket in July.
Coinbase — which also has an institutional custody arm — incentivizes users to hold stablecoins on its platform. It currently offers approximately 5.2% annual percentage yield on USD Coin (USDC). Coinbase owns an equity stake in the stablecoin’s issuer Circle.
Despite its recent successes, PYUSD still greatly lags behind dollar-pegged stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USDC. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the two leading stablecoins command market capitalizations of nearly $118 billion and $35 billion, respectively.
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