PayPal Partner Paxos Mints $300 Trillion in Error

New York: Paxos, the blockchain partner behind PayPal’s stablecoin (PYUSD), accidentally minted $300 trillion worth of tokens in a technical error on Wednesday, an amount more than double the world’s total GDP.

Blockchain data from Etherscan showed the massive minting before Paxos “immediately identified the error and burned the excess PYUSD,” the company said in a statement.

“This was an internal technical error. There is no security breach. Customer funds are safe,” Paxos said, adding that the issue was resolved within 20 minutes.

The glitch occurred during an internal transfer and did not affect user balances or market stability.

PYUSD, PayPal’s U.S. dollar–backed stablecoin, is pegged 1:1 to the dollar and supported by cash deposits and U.S. Treasuries.

The incident highlights that the stablecoin’s backing depends on PayPal’s reserves and attestation reports rather than on the minting process itself.

PYUSD currently ranks as the sixth-largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization of about $2.6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.