How PayPal Is Racing to Keep Its Lead in Stablecoins with PYUSD

PayPal was one of the first major financial institutions to launch a stablecoin. Now, as Wall Street races to catch up, the company is trying to answer a different question: How do you stay ahead once everyone else decides stablecoins matter?

For Larry Wade, who leads global risk, regulatory relations, and compliance for PayPal's crypto business unit, the answer starts with a simple observation. Despite years of growth and hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into stablecoins, the industry has barely scratched the surface of its intended use case.

"About $350 billion of stablecoin flows, less than 1% of that is actually true payments," Wade told Coinage during an interview at the Solana Policy Institute's Chicago conference. "Look at how much value there is to capture."

By Wade's estimate, stablecoins are still merely in their second inning. That opportunity helps explain why PayPal spent years building crypto infrastructure long before Washington passed the GENIUS Act and before stablecoins became a priority for nearly every major bank and payments company.

When PayPal first entered crypto roughly five years ago, the company faced a regulatory landscape with few clear rules and little precedent. Rather than moving aggressively, Wade says the company deliberately chose a slower path, leaning heavily on New York's BitLicense framework while adapting its existing risk and compliance systems to digital assets.

"The industry thought we were very slow. It was intentional," Wade said. "One, we didn't know what we didn't know. Two, we could not contaminate the primary business."

That cautious approach shaped PayPal's early crypto products. Customers could buy and hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, but initially could not move those assets on-chain. The company wanted to understand custody, wallet technology, transaction monitoring, sanctions compliance, and price execution before expanding functionality.

Over time, those foundations enabled PayPal to launch PYUSD, its dollar-backed stablecoin, and begin integrating blockchain rails into a much larger payments ecosystem. Today, PayPal's ambitions extend far beyond simply offering another stablecoin.

The company has begun using PYUSD across internal treasury operations and payment flows. According to Wade, PayPal has already processed hundreds of millions of dollars of internal dividend payments using PYUSD.

"We've done hundreds of millions of dollars of internal dividend payments from our Treasury team in PYUSD, which before would have taken days to do, where now we can do it instantly," he said.

At a market cap of $2.7 billion, PYUSD trails some of the larger stablecoins like Tether's USDT at $186 billion or Circle's USDC at $73 billion. Even the Trump-aligned stablecoin at World Liberty Financial, USD1, boasts a market cap closer to $5 billion. But as PayPal leans into its stablecoin, the size of the PayPal machine could easily accelerate growth.

The company is integrating PYUSD into cross-border payments, merchant settlement systems, rewards programs, and payout products. Rather than relying on traditional wire transfers and prefunded accounts, PayPal is increasingly using stablecoins to move value throughout its own network — one of PayPal's biggest advantages.

While much of crypto focuses on attracting users to new applications, PayPal already operates a global payments ecosystem with more than 400 million wallets spanning roughly 200 countries and territories. Wade believes stablecoins can unlock functionality inside that network that was previously difficult or impossible to provide.

PayPal has also expanded PYUSD into 70 additional markets. In some countries where PayPal users previously couldn't hold balances inside their wallets, PYUSD effectively creates a dollar-denominated store of value.

"Where we couldn't hold balance in that market, you actually now can hold a dollar denominated balance," Wade said. "That's true utility there."

The expansion required years of work navigating country-by-country regulatory requirements, licensing obligations, and product restrictions. But it also reflects PayPal's broader thesis that stablecoins will become a foundational layer of global commerce.

Importantly, Wade doesn't believe the future belongs to a single stablecoin issuer. Instead, he expects a world where banks, fintech firms, merchants, and payment providers all launch their own versions.

"Almost every major institution probably will have a version of a stablecoin," he said. The challenge, however, is interoperability.

A merchant may issue its own stablecoin. A bank may launch another. Consumers may hold assets across multiple ecosystems. Moving value between those systems will require trusted, widely accepted settlement assets that can function across networks. That's where PayPal believes PYUSD can carve out a durable role.

"The question is, is Bank A going to want to hold Bank B stablecoin? Is this merchant going to want to hold this merchant stablecoin? So I think PayPal can can be a benefit similar today that payment of choice," he said. "There'll be, I think, a few ubiquitous stablecoins that are comfortable to go interoperable amongst multiple ecosystems because it's more neutral."

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