PayPal Announces Possibility of Releasing a Stablecoin: PayPal Coin

Despite the bearish rout in the crypto industry, payments solution behemoth PayPal recently announced that it is working on issuing a personalized cryptocurrency.

While there are no details on what this cryptocurrency is or when it would drop, PayPay noted that it would be a stablecoin, possibly pegged to the US dollar. In an interview with Bloomberg News, senior vice president of crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, noted that the project is deeply rooted in exploration but was “very serious,” despite the unavailability of concrete implementation plans. However, the PayPal executive assured that if approved, the stablecoin would comply with all the necessary regulatory requirements. He noted that:

“We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will, of course, work closely with relevant regulators.”

If this project scales through, it presents tremendous benefits for PayPal. For example, because it is a stablecoin, regulatory pressure on the token would be less compared to the more volatile and decentralized cryptocurrencies, allowing holders to rest assured that the value of their assets will remain stable over time. A stablecoin also suits PayPal’s business model as a permissioned payments solution provider.

PayPal Coin Comes Following Discovery of Crypto Compatibility with NEO in 2021

Dubbed PayPay Coin, the project came to light in early 2022 by software developer Steve Moser, who—last November—revealed that the PayPal App’s code exhibited traits of compatibility with the NEO token.

NEO is an open-source decentralized blockchain/decentralized application (dApp) platform founded in China in 2014 and is popularly dubbed the “Chinese Ethereum.” NEO reveled in a lot of buzzes during the 2017 – 2018 crypto (ICO) boom, as many promoted it as the possible Ethereum killer.

However, the vision failed to take off over the ensuing years. At press time, it holds the 69th position in top crypto rankings with a valuation of $1.6 billion.