PayPal Expands PYUSD to Solana Network
Austin, Texas – Consensus 2024 – PayPal has officially announced the integration of its stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), with the Solana blockchain, unlocking faster settlement times and drastically lower transaction costs for users and developers. By leveraging Solana’s speed, scalability, and native features, PYUSD holders can now experience ultra-fast payments that settle in seconds — not minutes, hours, or days — making it a powerful solution for businesses and consumers alike.
Announcing the news at the Consensus 2024 conference, PayPal highlighted Solana’s unique ability to enable advanced blockchain-based payment use cases.
Sheraz Shere, General Manager of Payments at the Solana Foundation, emphasized the significance of the partnership, saying:
“The Solana network’s speed and scalability make it the ideal blockchain for global financial institutions, like PayPal, to create new payment solutions that are accessible, cost-effective, and instantaneous. Continued adoption from industry giants like PayPal is crucial for the next generation of fintech innovation.”
Expanding Access to PYUSD on Solana
PayPal USD on Solana is issued by Paxos Trust Company and is already available for use across a range of platforms, including:
- PayPal’s own platforms, including its flagship PayPal Wallet and Venmo Wallet,
- Blockchain-native tools, such as Crypto.com and Phantom Wallet, and
- Seamless transfers between Ethereum and Solana without any additional fees, ensuring flexibility for users across multiple blockchains.
This integration represents a significant step in PayPal’s mission to provide a stable digital currency designed for everyday commerce and payments.
“Making PYUSD available on the Solana blockchain furthers our mission of enabling a digital currency with a stable value designed for commerce and payments,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, SVP of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Currency at PayPal.
Why PYUSD Chose Solana
According to PayPal’s official statement, the decision to bring PYUSD to the Solana blockchain was driven by the network’s unmatched speed, low transaction costs, and scalability, as well as its compliance-friendly ecosystem.
Token Extensions — a core feature of Solana’s infrastructure — played a critical role in this decision. Unlike other blockchains that require third-party solutions for advanced features, Solana’s token extensions are natively built into the network, enabling developers and institutions to seamlessly implement compliance and functionality at scale.
PYUSD on Solana is among the first stablecoins to utilize these token extensions, which include:
- Confidential Transfers: Allowing merchants to maintain the confidentiality of transaction amounts while still complying with regulatory requirements by preserving visibility for specific transaction details.
- Transfer Hooks: Giving developers the ability to embed custom programs into token transfers, creating opportunities for innovative payment solutions tailored to both individuals and businesses.
- Memo Fields: Enabling senders and receivers to include relevant information with their payments, enhancing customer experiences for personal transactions and business payments alike.
In its formal announcement, PayPal highlighted that these features aren’t just innovative conveniences but fundamental to making PYUSD more useful for commerce-oriented use cases:
“These features are not merely nice-to-haves. We believe they are important features to provide to merchants if PYUSD is to grow in its utility to broader commercial segments.”
To learn more about the decision-making process behind the Solana integration, PayPal has shared an open letter outlining its vision for blockchain-enabled commerce.
How Solana Empowers Frictionless Payments
The integration of PYUSD highlights Solana’s position as a global leader in blockchain-based payments. Thanks to its sub-400 millisecond block times, high throughput, and low-cost transactions, Solana enables use cases that traditional payment systems cannot match.
In April 2024, Solana surpassed $1.5 trillion in stablecoin transfer volume, further cementing its role as the top blockchain for digital payments. Solana processes more transactions daily than all other blockchains combined, making it a natural choice for PYUSD’s expansion.
Some of Solana’s key benefits include:
- Near-Instant Settlements: Transactions settle in seconds, providing merchants and consumers instant access to funds — a stark contrast to the delays of traditional payment methods, which can take hours or even days.
- Simplified Cross-Border Payments: Solana’s blockchain enables businesses to bypass traditional intermediaries, making international payments smoother, faster, and more cost-effective.
- Customer Engagement with Loyalty Programs: Blockchain-enabled loyalty programs on Solana are proving to be highly effective. For example, the loyalty program from Boba Guys, built on the Solana network, increased monthly visits by 67% among users and generated an 800% return on investment.
- Payment-Friendly Tooling: Solana’s ecosystem offers solutions tailored for businesses, including permissioned environments and native compliance features like token extensions. These tools enable companies to create highly customized payment workflows with built-in compliance and customer service features.
What PYUSD on Solana Means for the Industry
By launching PYUSD on Solana, PayPal is unlocking a transformative payment ecosystem that marries traditional financial standards with cutting-edge blockchain innovation. Solana’s unmatched performance and unique tooling provide the foundation for PYUSD to power a wide variety of payment solutions, from seamless microtransactions to scalable e-commerce platforms.
With continued interest in blockchain-powered payment solutions from industry-leaders like PayPal, and Solana regularly breaking records in transaction volumes, this partnership is likely to influence the future of fintech innovation globally.
For those eager to experience the benefits of PYUSD on Solana, the stablecoin can now be accessed via PayPal, Venmo, Paxos, Crypto.com, and Phantom Wallet.
This collaboration not only makes blockchain-based payments more accessible but also paves the way for mainstream adoption of frictionless, low-cost digital payments.