Cryptocurrency market continues to bring notable developments to the forefront. Significant processes are taking place in stablecoin projects, especially recently. Accordingly, PayPal will allow users across the United States, except for the state of Hawaii, to use the US dollars converted from the local stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD) to fund international transfers to family and friends.
PayPal’s Noteworthy Move
According to the announcement made on April 4th, the service supported by PayPal’s Xoom can finance transfers to over 160 countries via PYUSD without a Xoom transaction fee. The company stated the following:
“Xoom offers a simple and reliable way for US users to finance cross-border money transfers with USD converted from PYUSD, using PYUSD as a funding source. When this option is selected, Xoom will convert PYUSD from a US user’s PayPal Crypto Center to USD currency without a crypto sale fee, and recipients will receive money in the fiat currency selected by the sender.”
Through the service, funds can be sent to an overseas recipient’s bank account, a mobile wallet address, or a financial institution for pickup. Transactions not in US dollars will be subject to a currency conversion that includes a spread. All US users, except for those in Hawaii where holding cryptocurrency is prohibited by state laws, can use this service.
What’s Happening in the Stablecoin Space?
PayPal USD‘s issuance and custody are carried out by the Paxos Trust Company in New York. Since its launch in August of the previous year, nearly 200 million dollars of PYUSD have been issued, a figure significantly lower than the market values of USD Coin at 32.9 billion dollars and Tether at 110 billion dollars.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Senior Vice President of PayPal’s Cryptocurrency Group, stated that the company’s goals with PYUSD are to create a stable value to maximize user trust and ensure it is useful for payments.
On the same day, Ripple announced it would launch its own US dollar-backed stablecoin to compete in the 150 billion dollar stablecoin market. Similarly, on April 3rd, investment management expert Jan van Eck’s son, Nick van Eck, is preparing to launch a new US dollar-backed stablecoin after closing a financing round of 12 million dollars.
