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PayPal to offer 3.7% yield on stablecoin balances: Report

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Payments behemoth PayPal plans to offer a 3.7% yield on balances held in its PayPal USD stablecoin.

According to an April 23 Bloomberg report, a PayPal representative said that the measure aims to encourage more usage of the firm’s stablecoin. The program is expected to launch this summer, and the rewards will also be paid out in PayPal USD (PYUSD).

Users will be able to exchange PYUSD for fiat currency, spend it or send it to other users. The rewards will accrue daily and will be paid on a monthly basis. The company hopes this feature will lead to a higher predominance of stablecoin and crypto payments on its platform.

The report follows PayPal USD reaching a $1 billion market cap in the summer of 2024. As of publication, the stablecoin’s market cap is nearly a quarter lower at $873.3 million.

PayPal USD’s market cap chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Tzahi Kanza, CEO of crypto investment firm Syndika, told Cointelegraph that “from a regulatory standpoint, PayPal must ensure that offering interest doesn’t cause its stablecoin to be classified as a security. “When it comes to financial risks for the users, he said that PayPal can keep its promises, and the main risk is losing the peg to the dollar rather than interest-related issues. He said:

“Stablecoins that don’t offer yield are generally not considered securities. However, yield-bearing stablecoins may fall under that classification.”

Related: PayPal’s Xoom launches cross-border stablecoin settlement

PayPal is betting on crypto

PayPal is betting on blockchain technology with its continued product development. Reports from earlier in April show that PayPal has expanded its cryptocurrency offerings to include Chainlink (LINK) and Solana (SOL), giving US-based users the ability to buy, sell and transfer the popular tokens.

In fact, PayPal was cited by Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron as one of the catalysts for the stablecoin industry’s rapid growth in recent years. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Boiron said, “Companies like Stripe and PayPal integrating stablecoins is likely the primary catalyst for their growth.”

Related: PayPal, Ernst & Young settle first corporate payment via PYUSD stablecoin

The story of PayPal USD

PYUSD is a US dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Paxos Trust Company on behalf of PayPal in August 2023. At the time of the launch, PayPal became the first major payment network to launch its own stablecoin, with Venmo rolling out support in September 2023.

Each token is purportedly backed one-to-one by cash deposits, short-term US Treasury notes and similar cash-equivalent assets in accounts overseen by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Initially, PYUSD was a token compliant with the ERC-20 Ethereum standard, but has since also been deployed on Solana (SOL).

PayPal USD’s current market cap is still a far cry from the top stablecoin, Tether’s USDt (USDT). At the time of writing, CoinMarketCap data shows that USDT’s market cap stands at $145.3 billion, over 17,255% higher than PYUSD’s. Kanza said that “Tether’s strength lies in its market dominance — not in its regulatory compliance, transparency, or yield” since it does not offer those. He added:

“To compete effectively, targeting these three areas — compliance, transparency and returns — would be a smart strategy [for PayPal.]“

Magazine: Chinese Tether laundromat, Bhutan enjoys recent Bitcoin boost: Asia Express

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OKX fires back at Tron's Justin Sun over mysterious 'freeze notice'

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OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has publicly defended the crypto exchange after Tron founder Justin Sun accused it of failing to act on a law enforcement request to freeze stolen funds following a recent hack of Tron’s official X account.

“OKX also has consumers protection policy according to law, we can’t freeze a customer’s funds according to your personal X post or an oral communication. I think you should understand it as the CEO of HTX,” Xu said in an X post.

OKX says there is no communication in the spam box, either

Xu said that the crypto exchange had not received any related correspondence through OKX’s official channels. “Our LE cooperation team just checked the email, including the spam box; we haven’t received any request related with this case,” Xu said.

Source: Star Xu

In what is now an unavailable X post, but was screenshotted by Xu, Sun had earlier claimed that OKX has not responded to a “freeze notice” sent to its official email address from a “relevant law enforcement agency.” Sun said that he had no other way to contact OKX’s compliance department.

“These stolen funds do not belong to me; I’m acting to protect the community,” Sun said. On May 3, Tron DAO told its 1.7 million X followers that its account had been compromised. Tron explained that during the breach, an unauthorized party posted a malicious crypto token contract address, sent direct messages, and followed unfamiliar accounts.

“If you received a DM from our account on May 2, please delete it and consider it the work of the attacker.”

In response to Sun’s claims of inaction, Xu publicly called on him to provide a screenshot showing when and where the law enforcement request was made.

The Tron incident is one of several recent security breaches involving high-profile crypto accounts on X.

Related: Over 14,500 Tron addresses at risk of silent hijacking

Kaito AI, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that aggregates crypto data to provide market analysis for users, and its founder, Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15. The hackers opened up a short position on KAITO tokens before posting that the Kaito wallets were compromised and advised users that their funds were not safe.

Just a few weeks before, on Feb. 26, The Pump.fun X account was compromised to promote a fake governance token called “PUMP” and other fraudulent coins.

Meanwhile, the X account of UK member of Parliament and Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, was hacked on April 15 to promote a scam crypto token.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

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Warren Buffett to step down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO by year's end

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Warren Buffett, the CEO of publicly traded investment company Berkshire Hathaway, announced at the company’s annual shareholder meeting that he will step down by the end of 2025, and his chosen successor will take over as CEO, pending approval from Berkshire’s board of directors.

According to CNBC, Buffett reiterated that Greg Abel, the company’s vice chairman of non-insurance operations, who was previously named by Buffett as his successor, will take over. The Berkshire founder announced:

“The time has arrived when Greg should become the Chief executive officer of the company at year-end, and I want to spring that on the directors effectively and give that as my recommendation.”

Buffett added that he would stay at the company in an advisory role “but the final word would be what Greg decided,” the CEO said. Buffett’s decision to step down as CEO comes at a time when Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on cash reserves of roughly $348 billion.

Buffett speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder conference. Source: CNBC

The legendary stock investor has repeatedly called the growing US national debt unsustainable and issued warnings on the increasingly unstable macroeconomic environment that has taken a toll on the stock market.

Related: Galaxy Digital plans Nasdaq listing as crypto stocks post strong rebound

Berkshire Hathaway outperforms S&P but is outclassed by Bitcoin

Despite being renowned for consistently returning roughly double the average performance of the S&P 500 to investors throughout his career, Buffet has failed to outperform Bitcoin (BTC) and gold.

Although Berkshire Hathaway’s class A common stock carries a price tag of over $809,000, and a market cap of over $1 trillion at the time of this writing, shares of the company have massively underperformed against Bitcoin in percentage terms since 2015.

Bitcoin has returned gains of over 781% to investors since 2020, while Berkshire Hathaway only returned approximately 150% over the same period.

Bitcoin’s price performance appears in magenta and has outperformed Berkshire Hathaway’s stock in percentage gains. Source: TradingView

Buffett has long been critical of BTC, arguing that the decentralized, supply-capped, digital currency has no value and likened it to a scam on several occasions.

The Berkshire founder and his business partner Charlie Munger have repeatedly said that Bitcoin does not even qualify as an investment and should be avoided by traders.

Magazine: Bitcoin in Senegal: Why is this African country using BTC?

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Bitcoin miners should pay costs in depreciating currency — Ledn exec

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Bitcoin (BTC) mining firms should hold their mined Bitcoin and use it as collateral for fiat-denominated loans to pay operating expenses instead of selling BTC and losing the upside of an asset that miners expect to surge in price, according to John Glover, chief investment officer at Bitcoin lending firm Ledn.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Glover said that holding onto the BTC carries several benefits including, price appreciation, tax deferment, and the potential to make extra revenue by lending out BTC held in corporate treasuries. The executive added:

“If you are mining, you are generating all this Bitcoin. You understand the thesis behind Bitcoin and why it is likely going to continue to appreciate in the future. You do not want to sell any of your Bitcoin.”

This debt-based approach is similar to companies like Strategy, which issue corporate debt and equity to finance Bitcoin acquisition and profit from the diverging fundamentals of BTC and the fiat currencies the corporate capital raises are denominated in.

BTC mining hashprice, a metric used to gauge miner profitability, has collapsed as ever-increasing computing resources are deployed to secure the network. Source: Hashrate Index

Bitcoin-backed loans could be a valuable lifeline for miners struggling in the highly competitive industry, which is facing increased pressure due to the ongoing trade tensions brought on by the Trump administration’s protectionist trade policies and macroeconomic uncertainty.

Related: Riot Platforms secures $100M ‘Bitcoin-backed’ loan from Coinbase

Trade war places even more pressure on beleaguered mining industry

The Bitcoin mining industry is characterized by high competition and capital costs that increase over time as more powerful computing resources are used to mine blocks and secure the network.

US President Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs have cast a cloud over the already competitive sector, raising fears that import duties will raise the cost of mining equipment, like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), to unsustainable levels.

Mining firms collectively sold over 40% of their mined supply produced in March 2025 amid the heightened macroeconomic uncertainty and fears that the ongoing trade tensions will cause price increases across the board.

According to TheMinerMag, this 40% sell-off marked the reversal of a trend that began post-halving, in April 2024, and represented the highest monthly BTC liquidation among miners since October 2024.

Magazine: Korea to lift corporate crypto ban, beware crypto mining HDs: Asia Express

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