PayPal Stablecoin Offers Confidential Transfers

On May 29, PayPal expanded its financial services by launching its dollar-pegged stablecoin, PYUSD, on the Solana blockchain, having initially been available exclusively on Ethereum.

A significant new feature introduced with this deployment is "confidential transfers."

This feature enables merchants to hide the amounts of transactions from the public while still providing necessary transparency for regulatory oversight, as noted in a recent Solana blog post.

Bitcoin enthusiast Udi Wertheimer commented on this development on social media platform X, humorously noting that while Bitcoin developers have discussed similar features for years without implementation, PayPal has managed to introduce it first for its users.

Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs, remarked that PayPal's choice of Solana goes beyond just seeking faster transaction speeds.

He emphasized that Solana's native support for confidential transfers and token programmability at the blockchain's base layer (L1) is revolutionary.

Moreover, the integration of PYUSD into Solana is facilitated by Solana’s token extension standard, which aligns with the SPL token standard, simplifying development and testing processes, providing enterprise-ready capabilities, and ensuring versatility in usage across different platforms.

The Solana Foundation highlighted that these token extensions (TEs) are designed to be an open standard, promoting broader integration of PYUSD beyond the PayPal ecosystem into any compatible wallet, exchange, or library.

Launched by Paxos in August 2023, PYUSD is backed primarily by U.S. Treasury Reverse Repurchase Agreements.

Since its inception, its circulating supply has surged by 50%, with a reported 24-hour trading volume of approximately $18 million according to CoinGecko.

Initially available on Ethereum, the stablecoin now also circulates on Solana with a significant total supply, as per Solana’s network explorer data.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/paypal-pyusd-stablecoin-confidential-transfers-solana

https://solana.com/news/pyusd-paypal-solana-developer

https://x.com/udiWertheimer/status/1795817441102029210

https://x.com/0xMert_/status/1795853953822789820

https://paxos.com/pyusd-transparency/

https://explorer.solana.com/address/2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo