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11h ago

Paxos Mints and Burns $300 Trillion in PYUSD After Internal Error

Paxos says the on-chain blunder was an internal transfer error with no customer impact, sharpening scrutiny of its controls during its bid for a national trust charter.

Is Paxos about to settle the world’s debt with this $300T mint?
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Overview

  • Blockchain records show the mint occurred at 3:12 PM EST and the entire amount was destroyed just over 20 minutes later by sending it to an inaccessible Ethereum address.
  • Paxos said there was no security breach or user impact and stated it had identified and addressed the root cause of the mistake.
  • Reporters noted two earlier 300 million PYUSD transactions that contextualized the error, and on-chain data show the mint cost roughly $2.66 in fees.
  • The episode is drawing regulatory attention as Paxos pursues an OCC national trust charter under the GENIUS Act, with critics such as Better Markets’ Amanda Fischer urging caution.
  • Aave temporarily froze PYUSD lending markets as a precaution, and PayPal had not issued a formal comment as Paxos pointed inquiries to its post on X.