What happened? Paxos accidentally minted $300 trillion of PYUSD and burned it minutes later.
Paxos mistakenly added six extra zeros when minting PayPal’s PYUSD, producing an eye‑watering $300 trillion on-chain that Etherscan recorded. The firm detected the error quickly, burned the excess tokens and re-minted the intended $300 million within minutes. The fast on-chain reversal shows it was an operational “fat‑finger” mistake rather than a malicious event.
Who does this affect? PYUSD users, exchanges, market makers and anyone relying on the stablecoin.
Directly affected are PYUSD holders and platforms that custody, trade, or peg to the token, since minting errors can complicate accounting and liquidity. Exchanges, market makers and DeFi apps using PYUSD had to monitor the situation and might pause trading or adjust positions if anomalies show up. More broadly, other stablecoin issuers, institutional users and regulators are watching closely because these incidents highlight operational risks across the ecosystem.
Why does this matter? It matters for market confidence, operational risk and potential regulatory attention.
The immediate market impact was limited because the excess was burned and PYUSD’s supply and price stayed essentially intact, but the incident underscores how fragile crypto’s plumbing can be. With the stablecoin market around $306 billion and PYUSD roughly $2.32 billion, this wasn’t systemic, yet it could dent confidence in smaller issuers and cause short-term trading volatility. Repeated minting mishaps are likely to push investors and regulators toward tighter controls, audits and more transparency, which could change operational costs and oversight across the sector.