PYUSD hits $1 billion milestone with the majority of its supply on Solana PYUSD hits $1 billion milestone with the majority of its supply on Solana
Incentives offered by money market Kamino might be the major factor behind most of PYUSD being issued on Solana.
2 min read
Updated: Aug. 26, 2024 at 9:24 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD surpassed $1 billion in market cap on Aug. 24, according to CoinGecko data.
On an X (formerly Twitter) post, PYUSD’s issuer Paxos celebrated the feat, highlighting how fast the stablecoin crossed the important mark when compared to its peers, USD Coin (USDC) and Tether USD (USDT).
CoinGecko data shows that it took 351 days for PYUSD to cross the billion threshold, while USDC and USDT exceeded the same mark within 616 and 1024 days, respectively.
Notably, most of the PYUSD market cap is circulating on Solana, less than three months after PayPal decided to expand the issuance of its stablecoin outside of Ethereum on May 29.
As on-chain data shows, over $647 million in PYUSD is deployed on Solana, with roughly $430 million locked as collateral for lending on the money market platform Kamino.
The significant amount of PYUSD allocated at Kamino can be explained by the high annual percentage yield (APY) offered by the platform, currently at a base of 13.63% and 14.6% with bonuses.
The second largest application for PYUSD is the liquidity pool USDC/PYUSD at the decentralized exchange Orca, which has $50.4 million locked.
On Ethereum, most of the PYUSD is locked in the FRAX/PYUSD liquidity pool created at the decentralized exchange Curve Finance, with $19.5 million allocated.
Tough competition
Despite the rapid growth, the PYUSD still faces heavy competition, both on Solana and on the broader stablecoin market.
On-chain data shows that USDT holds a $76 million lead over PYUSD on Solana. Yet, this could soon be overturned, as PayPal’s stablecoin grew 171% over the past 30 days, while USDT shrank 1.35%.
Nevertheless, USDC is nearly 4x larger than PYUSD in Solana’s ecosystem, amounting to $2.5 billion.
On the broad stablecoin ecosystem, PYUSD is behind five other tokens in market cap. USDT dominates the $162 billion sector, with a market cap of nearly $118 billion.
USDC is the second-largest stablecoin, inching closer to $35 billion. DAI is third, with over $5.1 billion in market size, while First Digital USD boasts a $3.1 billion market cap. Ethena USDe wraps up the group with $2.9 billion in size.
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Author 
Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law school graduate and a seasoned journalist with six years of experience in the crypto industry. His expertise primarily focuses on the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and developments in decentralized finance (DeFi).
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PayPal USD is backed entirely by short-term US Treasuries, U.S.
Tether
$1.00042
Launched in 2014, Tether is a blockchain-enabled platform designed to facilitate the use of fiat currencies in a digital manner.
USD Coin
$0.99998
USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin fully backed by the US dollar and developed by the CENTRE consortium.
Kamino Finance
$0.11814
Kamino provides a range of products that integrate various DeFi fundamentals to drive advanced strategies, all packaged within a user-friendly interface.
PayPal
PayPal is an American multinational financial technology firm that operates an online payment system in most countries that permits online money transfers and serves as an electronic replacement for conventional paper methods like checks and money orders.
Tether Limited
Tether Limited is the company that introduced Tether (USD₮ or USDT), an asset-backed cryptocurrency stablecoin, in 2014.
Paxos
Paxos Trust Company, LLC is a regulated blockchain infrastructure company building transparent and transformative financial solutions.