Paxos Blunder Shocks Market! Erroneously Mints 300 Trillion PYUSD, Stablecoin Issuance Under Fire

TradingKey – Paxos mistakenly minted 300 trillion PYUSD, exposing serious gaps in stablecoin oversight and internal controls.

On Thursday, October 16, Paxos, the issuer of PayPal’s (PYPL) stablecoin PYUSD, accidentally minted 300 trillion tokens, equivalent to $300 trillion USD — a figure that far exceeds the total value of the entire crypto market. According to CoinMarketCap, the peak crypto market cap was $4.2 trillion, with the current value around $3.8 trillion. In other words, Paxos briefly minted the equivalent of 70 entire crypto markets.

Global Crypto Market Cap – Source: CoinMarketCap.

Within 20 minutes, Paxos destroyed the entire 300 trillion PYUSD and issued a statement attributing the incident to a technical error:

“During an internal transfer, we mistakenly minted excess PYUSD. Paxos immediately identified the error and destroyed the surplus. This was a technical issue — not a security breach. Customer funds remain safe, and we’ve resolved the root cause.”

The incident has raised serious concerns:

1. Blaming a technical error for such a massive minting event seems overly simplistic — some speculate deeper issues may be at play.
2. The ability to mint and burn trillions of dollars within minutes suggests a lack of robust regulatory oversight and internal safeguards.