-
As of now, there is no official announcement from PayPal.
-
The feature was only enabled for users in the UK and US.
PayPal, one of the world’s leading online payment systems, will expand access to its stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD) to users in 70 countries. That way, they will be able to store, send and receive the asset within their platform.
The information was released today, March 17, in an article in the economic magazine Fortune, which includes statements by May Zabaneh, vice president senior and responsible for the company’s digital assets area.
Until now, PayPal has not made an official announcement detailing this expansion.
The expansion implies an expansion of functions within the PayPal ecosystem, but does not mean that PYUSD could not previously be used in those countries. Before, the stablecoin could be obtained outside of PayPal on platforms such as OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Orca, Bitget, Crypto.com, Gate, BingX y Curve.
Until now, the ability to store PYUSD directly in the PayPal wallet was limited to users in the United States and the United Kingdom. With this update, customers in new markets, such as Colombia, Peru or Uganda, will be able to keep the asset within the platform and use it for transfers between users.
The article also mentions its expansion to other countries in South America, Africa and Asia, although at the moment it has not specified in more detail which ones will be included.
The initiative also enables a relevant change in the user experience. In many countries, users could only withdraw money in local currency, which involved additional conversions and costs. With PYUSD, they will be able to maintain a balance in a unit linked to the dollar and potentially reduce commissions on international payments.
Additionally, PayPal indicated that Users outside the United States will also be able to access rewards for holding their stablecoinsimilar to the 4% annual return that some users in that country currently receive.
The expansion comes in a context of asset growth. As NoticiasVE has explained, PYUSD is designed to maintain a 1 to 1 relationship with the US dollar. To sustain that peg, the asset is backed by dollar deposits, short-term US Treasury bonds and cash equivalents.
It should be remembered that, although it bears the PayPal brand, its issuance is carried out by Paxos Trust Company, a financial firm specialized in infrastructure for digital assets.
PYUSD’s market capitalization reaches $4,098 million, having increased significantly since its launch in 2023.
PYUSD still fails to dominate the market
PayPal cryptocurrency still is far from the market’s dominant stablecoins, such as USDT and USDCwhich have capitalizations of 184,000 million and 79,000 million dollars, respectively.
PayPal has also been integrating PYUSD into different areas of its business. Institutional users, such as YouTube, can now choose to receive payments in this stablecoin through the company’s services. At the same time, the company has experimented with international transfers between its own subsidiaries using PYUSD.
Expanding access to PYUSD reinforces PayPal’s strategy of positioning its stablecoin as a tool for international payments, especially in contexts where cross-border transfers involve high costs.
However, the impact of this measure will depend on its effective implementation in each country and whether it manages to translate into real use by users within the platform ecosystem.