PayPal enables Stablecoin-To-Fiat option for international payments

Payments company PayPal announced today that customers in the US can now use Stablecoin to fund international payments.

In a press release Thursday, it explained that customers can now convert PayPal USD (PYUSD) to dollars and send money to “recipients in nearly 160 countries” with no fees through the Xoom payment platform.

PayPal's PYUSD is a virtual token that runs on Ethereum. It is also a dollar-peg stable coin backed by cash equivalents and short-term treasuries. PayPal launched PYUSD last year, and Paxos Trust Co.

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, SVP of PayPal's blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital currency group, said the move “builds on our goal of buying mainstream cryptocurrencies.”

“When we decided to bring PayPal USD to market, we had two goals we wanted to achieve, which were to increase user trust and create a stable value proposition to ensure that it has utility for commerce and payments,” he added.

A stablecoin is a digital asset pegged to something stable – in this case, the US dollar. Such signals do not go up and down like the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum.

In the crypto world, people often use fiat currencies to exit transactions when they cannot immediately access fiat currencies held in a traditional bank, which speeds up the trading experience.

PayPal launched Stablecoin last year, hoping it would become “part of the overall payment infrastructure.”

It is smaller than other stablecoins in the crypto world, such as Tether's USDT, which is the most-traded digital asset and the third largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of 106 billion dollars.

In comparison, PYUSD's market cap is $109 million.

PayPal allows its users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, through the platform and transfer them to external wallets.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.