PayPal has moved its PYUSD stablecoin into a new “Payment Services & Crypto” business unit alongside its core merchant operations, placing the token closer to the company’s checkout, settlement, and processing products even as PYUSD supply declined sharply from its March high.
The shift emerged in PayPal’s second-quarter results, which showed PYUSD circulation falling about 31% from roughly $4.2 billion in March to about $2.7 billion by the end of the quarter. The company is keeping the stablecoin embedded in its payments strategy rather than treating the contraction in supply as a reason to pull back from product development.
PayPal reported $8.68 billion in second-quarter revenue, compared with market expectations ranging from $8.47 billion to $8.68 billion. Total payment volume reached $486.4 billion, up 10% from a year earlier, or 9% on a currency-neutral basis. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.38, above the $1.28 consensus estimate cited in the supplied materials.
GAAP earnings per share were $1.26, slightly below expectations, while the company lifted its full-year adjusted EPS outlook to about $5.38. GAAP operating margin declined to 16.4% from 18.1% in the same period a year earlier.
The quarter also included an $81 million net loss related to strategic investments and crypto assets held for investment purposes. PayPal excluded that loss from its non-GAAP results, separating the performance of its operating business from gains and losses tied to assets on its balance sheet.
Pyusd moves closer to merchant products
The new Payment Services & Crypto unit places PYUSD in the same reporting structure as merchant payment tools, suggesting PayPal is looking to use the stablecoin as infrastructure for commerce rather than relying only on consumer trading or wallet balances.
PayPal has said it intends to introduce additional merchant products using PYUSD and to develop “agentic payments,” a term generally used for transactions initiated or managed by AI software agents. In a payments setting, such tools could allow software to execute approved purchases, recurring transactions, or business-to-business settlements under pre-set rules.
PYUSD’s potential role in that system depends less on headline issuance figures than on whether merchants, payment providers, and developers choose to settle transactions with it. Stablecoin supply can rise when tokens are minted for exchange, treasury, or liquidity purposes without corresponding merchant use. Payment integration, by contrast, would tie PYUSD demand to actual transaction flows inside PayPal’s existing network.
PayPal expanded PYUSD’s distribution earlier this year to 70 markets, according to the supplied materials. Its supply had previously grown at a pace approaching 680% year over year before reaching its approximately $4.2 billion March peak.
The token is now available across nine public blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Stellar, Avalanche, Aptos, Sei, Tron, and Abstract. That footprint gives PayPal several technical routes for moving PYUSD, though a multi-chain strategy also requires consistent liquidity, wallet support, and compliance controls across each network.
Solana and polygon add payment routes
PayPal selected Solana as the default network for PYUSD-related payment processing in February. Solana’s lower transaction fees and fast confirmation times have made it a common choice for stablecoin transfers, particularly for smaller payments where costs on Ethereum’s main network can be less practical.
On July 9, PYUSD also launched natively through Polygon’s Open Money Stack. The package includes wallet tools, fiat on-ramps, compliance features, and onchain settlement infrastructure. Native issuance can reduce the need for users to rely on third-party bridging systems when moving PYUSD into applications built around Polygon’s network.
PayPal and MoonPay have also introduced a “PYUSDx” framework, designed to let developers create application-specific stablecoins backed by PYUSD reserves. Such a structure could give a platform its own branded token while keeping the underlying reserve base connected to PYUSD.
That approach resembles a distribution model increasingly used across stablecoins: an issuer provides the reserves and compliance framework, while outside platforms build customer-facing products and potentially control user relationships. The model could expand PYUSD’s utility without requiring PayPal to develop every wallet, marketplace, or application itself.
As of early August, PYUSD’s circulating supply was about 2.7 billion tokens, giving it a market value near $2.72 billion, according to CoinGecko. The tracker ranked it around no. 32 among stablecoins.
Open usd adds a consortium model
PayPal is also participating in Open USD, a separate stablecoin initiative announced on June 30 and scheduled for launch in the second half of 2026. The project is set to be operated by a newly formed independent company, Open Standard.
Open Standard lists more than 140 partners, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Shopify, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, Google, IBM, Solana, and Aave. The partner list combines traditional payment companies, financial institutions, technology groups, and crypto-focused networks that could contribute distribution, settlement connections, or developer support.
Open USD’s terms describe fee-free, uncapped minting and redemption for partners. Reserve income, after a management fee, would be distributed to participating partners rather than retained by one issuer. Governance would be handled by a board made up of partner institutions.
The structure puts revenue-sharing at the center of the project. Stablecoin issuers traditionally earn much of their income from interest on reserve assets, such as short-dated government securities. Open USD would direct a portion of that economics toward firms that distribute and use the token, giving payment companies and platforms a direct financial incentive to promote it.
PayPal’s participation leaves it operating on two tracks: maintaining PYUSD as its own stablecoin while supporting a shared standard designed around partner control and reserve-income distribution. That arrangement could give PayPal flexibility to use PYUSD inside its own products while joining a network intended to connect more payment and commerce firms.
Circle was not listed among Open USD’s announced partners. Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire referenced Paxos’s consortium-style stablecoin USDG, saying it had reached roughly $3 billion in supply after more than two years. PYUSD, despite its recent decline from the March peak, stood close to $2.7 billion at the end of the second quarter.
PayPal’s next test is whether merchant integrations can turn PYUSD’s multi-chain reach into recurring payment activity. The company’s new reporting structure suggests that outcome will be judged increasingly alongside payment volume, merchant adoption, and the economics of settlement rather than by stablecoin supply alone.
Explore how stablecoins reshape payments and trading in 2026 with Toobit’s insights in this detailed analysis.
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