Blockchain data showed stablecoin issuer Paxos both minted and burned about $300 trillion worth of the PayPal USD stablecoin within 30 minutes, leaving many crypto users scratching their heads.
In a Wednesday X post following the mint and burn, Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg said Aave would be temporarily freezing trades for PayPal USD (PYUSD) after an “unexpected high-magnitude transaction” of minting and burning the stablecoin. Ethereum blockchain data showed Paxos minting 300 trillion of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin at 7:12 pm UTC and then burning the entire amount 22 minutes later by sending it to an inaccessible wallet.
Reporting from The Defiant suggested that it had been an “accidental mint” given the timing. Others online have speculated that such a large mint and burn may have been some kind of test or simulation authorized by Paxos.
Cointelegraph reached out to the stablecoin issuer for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication, nor had Paxos or PayPal publicly commented on the move.
$300 trillion is more than twice the Gross Domestic Product for every country on earth, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.