Paxos accidentally minted 300 million USD stablecoin PYUSD, printing three times the global GDP in one click.

Stablecoin issuer Paxos unexpectedly minted 300 trillion PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoins this morning, amounting to three times the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), causing an uproar in the market. Even though they were all destroyed within 22 minutes, it still raised concerns about the transparency of stablecoin issuance.

Serious blunder: Paxos accidentally pressed the wrong button, turning 30 billion into 30 trillion.

Blockchain data shows that Paxos mistakenly minted 300 trillion PYUSD on Ethereum this morning, which was then urgently sent to a black hole address for destruction, followed by the re-minting of 30 billion PYUSD, clearly indicating a serious error where the operator added 6 extra zeros.

It is reported that $300 trillion is approximately three times the total global GDP of $111 trillion in 2024, printed overnight, making PayPal the world's richest person for a brief 20 minutes.

Paxos later published on X stating that this was a technical error by internal personnel, emphasizing that it was not a hacker intrusion and that user funds are safe.

Omer Goldberg, founder of Chaos Labs, stated: “After an unexpected high amount of minting and burning of stablecoins, Aave will temporarily freeze the trading of PYUSD.”

Although this “fat finger (fat finger)” incident did not cause any substantial loss, it highlights a disturbing fact that stablecoins seem to be able to be minted arbitrarily without reserve verification.

(Paxos is keeping pace with Circle and Ripple, applying for a national trust bank license in the United States)

Paxos is no stranger to this, as New York regulators have come knocking.

The Information pointed out that the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which is responsible for regulating Paxos, stated that they are aware of the incident and are in contact with Paxos and PayPal.

However, as early as September 2023, Paxos made a payment of 19.89 BTC (, approximately 500,000 USD ), due to an input error and failure to verify, to transfer 0.008 BTC (200 USD ).

(Paxos fat fingers, spending 500,000 USD to transfer 200 USD worth of Bitcoin)

The transparency of stablecoin issuers has become a concern again.

The repeated incidents of fat-finger errors have once again brought to light the regulatory and transparency flaws in the stablecoin market. The community questions why issuers can so carelessly create currency without sufficient reserve assets and comprehensive review and approval measures, fearing that similar mistakes may occur again, resulting in irreparable disasters.

Previously, the leading stablecoin issuer Tether has always been criticized for its opaque reserves, and now the Paxos incident once again confirms that a company can mint 300 trillion dollars out of thin air without any asset reserves.

BeinCrypro editors believe that if blockchain protocols can incorporate mechanisms such as minting limits or reserve verification, such incidents can be completely avoided. However, under the current centralized issuance model, investors still need to trust the issuing party's risk control capabilities and integrity.

The “fat fingers” may severely damage the image of Paxos and Paypal.

Although Paxos quickly stopped the bleeding and clarified the mistake, this slip-up is likely to deter traditional financial institutions from entering the stablecoin market and will also damage the cooperative image of PayPal and Paxos.

It is undoubtedly a reminder for regulatory authorities that as the scale of stablecoins continues to rise and is seen as the future payment infrastructure, transparency and market protection mechanisms have become essential.

In this article, Paxos accidentally minted 300 billion dollars worth of stablecoin PYUSD, printing three times the global GDP with one click. It first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.