The PayPal-owned mobile payments service Venmo added support for its parent company’s US-dollar pegged stablecoin PYUSD.
Operations with the stablecoin are currently available to a select group of users. The asset will be rolled out at scale in the coming weeks.
PayPal announced the launch of the stablecoin on August 7. PYUSD is built on the Ethereum blockchain under the ERC-20 standard. The issuer is the infrastructure company Paxos.
According to the statement, the coin is designed to connect fiat dollars to the Web3 ecosystem, simplifying everyday payments while increasing speed and reducing costs.
“Venmo users can buy PYUSD and send them to friends and family through PayPal, Venmo and compatible external wallets,” the press release said.
Transactions between the two related platforms are free. External wallets and merchants that accept payments in the stablecoin will also be able to receive transfers via Venmo, with a blockchain fee applying to such transfers.
PayPal noted that PYUSD is already present in native crypto practice and is becoming more accessible as the ecosystem grows. In the weeks since launch, a number of entities have added support for the coin:
- exchanges (Crypto.com, Bitstamp, Coinbase and Kraken);
- wallets (MetaMask, Ledger and Phantom);
- custodians and providers of institutional services (Fireblocks, Copper, Paxos and Fordefi);
- well-known DeFi applications.
Earlier, Tether co-founder William Quigley assessed the prospects for using PayPal’s stablecoin.