PayPal’s stablecoin may come with restrictions (no self-respecting extropian coder has ever signed a “terms of use” contract), but the company should be commended on its apparent commitment to transparency. PayPal has been an active and consistent supporter of crypto since it expressed interest in Bitcoin in 2013, but it gave up on the cypherpunk ideal of a “new world currency.” The publicly-traded company, which launched the careers of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the rest of the “PayPal Mafia,” learned pretty quickly that its initial vision for a stateless, global payments system would be beaten into submission by banks and governments. It should be no surprise which wolf is dominant in PayPal, the side that wants to work from within the system, rather than outside. It’s crypto, sans crypto – or fintech with the benefit of blockchain. It’s enough headbutting and disagreement to wonder how exactly crypto made it this far – that one of the most used payments companies is tapping the Ethereum mainnet, high fees be damned, for its next rung of expansion.Īnd so PayPal’s stablecoin is no different: PYUSD, which to begin with is U.S.-only, will eventually be a near-universally accessible payments option that is subject to just as much surveillance and “censorship” as PayPal or its subsidiary Venmo today. The build-and-break-things contingent and those who go slow and steady. As the meme goes: inside crypto are two wolves. īut this isn’t new for crypto, an industry racked by competing visions, contradictory strategies and occasional moral scruples. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here. ![]() This is an excerpt from The Node newsletter, a daily roundup of the most pivotal crypto news on CoinDesk and beyond. The largest of these saw nearly $3 million in trading volume in mere hours, and almost assuredly more than a few will turn out to be rug pulls. Of course, as ever in the world of crypto, it’s not all sunshine and roses: After the surprise PYUSD stablecoin announcement, a bevy of imposter tokens like “pepeyieldunibotsatoshidoge” (aka PYUSD) have launched on Ethereum, various layer 2s and BNB Smart Chain looking to capitalize on post-announcement ignorance and buzz. That may seem a tiny rally for anyone used to triple-digit gains on s**tcoins, but is respectable in the world of late-stage, slow-growth tech companies that have just about reached peak market saturation (PayPal reports having more than 400 million active users, and accounts for ~70% of eBay transactions). Here’s some confirmation that crypto isn’t entirely toxic: In the hours after internet payments pioneer PayPal announced a stablecoin on Ethereum, the company’s stock rallied 2%.
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