Summary
PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin on Polygon's payment rail, enabling companies to accept funds from cards, bank accounts, or exchange balances, move PYUSD across borders, and cash out into local currency. PYUSD has a $2.8B market cap, lagging USDT ($184B) and USDC ($73B). Polygon settles $2.5B+ in stablecoin volume daily and has processed $2.6T+ total. The integration comes as banks prepare to launch OpenUSD, a consortium-backed stablecoin from Open Standard backed by BNY, Huntington, US Bank, Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase. PYUSD issuer Paxos holds an OCC national trust charter obtained in December 2025.
Key Facts
- PYUSD market cap: ~$2.8B
- Polygon daily stablecoin volume: $2.5B+; total processed: $2.6T+
- PYUSD expanded to 70+ countries outside the US earlier in 2026
- OpenUSD consortium: BNY, Huntington, US Bank, Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, Adyen, Affirm, Klarna, Chime, Google, Capital One's Brex, StanChart, Nuvei, Ramp, Marqeta, Shopify, Remitly
- PYUSD is GENIUS Act compliant (issued by Paxos with OCC trust charter)
- Polygon acquired CoinMe and Sequence for $250M earlier in 2026
Why It Matters
PYUSD's Polygon integration gives PayPal a distribution channel into the largest stablecoin payment network by volume, competing with USDC and USDT for cross-border payment flows. The looming OpenUSD launch threatens to squeeze mid-tier stablecoins between the dominant incumbents and bank-backed consortium coins. PYUSD's GENIUS Act compliance and Paxos's OCC charter give it regulatory advantages that pure crypto-native stablecoins lack.