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While the community discusses low demand for PayPal's novel stablecoin and its potential regulatory risks, its trading volume on CEXes has witnessed a surprising upsurge. One exchange is responsible for almost 90% of $PYUSD swaps registered in the last 34 hours, CoinMarketCap's data says.
$PYUSD sees rocketing trading volume, faces price de-peg, data says
In the last 24 hours, trading volume in pairs with PayPal's stablecoin $PYUSD unexpectedly jumped by almost 225%. This indicator set a new all-time high above $4.8 million. Out of this sum, more than $4 million in equivalent was processed by Australia-based exchange Hotcoin Global. The exchange has a "medium" 5.8/10 spot exchange score on CoinMarketCap.
The exchange added the $PYUSD/USDT pair one week ago. Now, its trading activity is almost 10x higher than that of its closest competitor, BitMart. Together with Seyshelles-based heavyweight Huobi, BitMart was among the first exchanges to add support for PayPal's stablecoin.
As such a spike in trading activity is very sensitive for a low-liquidity asset — $PYUSD stablecoin's market capitalization barely exceeds $43 million — $PYUSD briefly lost its peg to the U.S. dollar.
On Aug. 29, 2023, the price pf $PYUSD jumped to $1.05, creating dangerous arbitrage opportunities. By press time, the $PYUSD/USD peg almost recovered; the price stabilized at $1.00.
As covered by U.Today previously, $PYUSD is a stablecoin issued by major fintech PayPal and financial company Paxos Trust in the U.S. The release of $PYUSD was announced on Aug. 7, 2023.
PayPal USD ($PYUSD) listing campaign gains traction
The stablecoin is fully centralized and, therefore, its usage requires KYC checks. Also, PayPal might freeze $PYUSD accounts on the Ethereum ($ETH) network, researchers warned.
On Aug. 21, 2023, the $PYUSD made it to the first major exchange, U.S-regulated platform Kraken. Also, it is available on decentralized exchange Uniswap v3 in pairs with Ethereum ($ETH) and Wrapped Ethereum ($ETH).
However, the community is awaiting more listing announcements. The largest U.S. exchange Coinbase has already started considering $PYUSD listing.
The asset was added to the roadmap of the exchange on Aug. 25, 2023, which was the first statement of Coinbase's plan to launch trading of $PYUSD pairs.