PayPal’s blockchain partner, Paxos, looks to have made something of a maths-related whoopsie earlier this week, as it mistakenly minted $300 trillion worth of its stablecoin, PYUSD.
That figure might look massive in its own right, but it’s even more impressive when you take into account that it’s more than double the world’s GDP—which is currently estimated to be around $111 trillion, based on figures from 2024.
The error was spotted by eagle-eyed market watchers on Etherscan, a block explorer and analytics platform, and was said to be fixed within 20 minutes (via CNBC). The company released a statement on X confirming the erroneous minting of coins, describing it as an internal technical error. “There is no security breach,” the post continues. “Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root cause.”
