Paxos Inadvertently Creates 300 Trillion PYUSD Tokens in Stunning Error In a monumental and deeply embarrassing mishap, Paxos, the blockchain infrastructure partner for PayPal, accidentally created 300 trillion PYUSD tokens today. This figure is not just large, it is almost incomprehensible, dwarfing the entire global economy. PayPal’s stablecoin, PYUSD, was launched in 2023 and is designed to be pegged one-to-one with the US dollar, meaning each token should be backed by and redeemable for a real dollar held in reserve. The accidental creation of 300 trillion tokens represents a theoretical value of 300 trillion US dollars. To put that in perspective, the entire world’s current Gross Domestic Product is estimated by the IMF to be around 117 trillion dollars. This error resulted in the creation of a digital asset worth more than double the value of all goods and services produced on the planet. Paxos quickly moved to address the situation. The company acknowledged the incident in a post on the social media platform X, labeling it an internal technical error. They assured users that all client funds remained secure and, most critically, stated that they had already burned the massive excess of tokens, effectively deleting them from existence. While the company has framed this as a contained technical glitch that was swiftly corrected, the event sends shockwaves through the financial and crypto communities. It highlights the extreme fragility and potential for catastrophic human or system error within the digital asset ecosystem. An error of this scale, even if quickly reversed, undermines the core promise of stability and security that stablecoins are built upon. Incidents like this fuel skepticism about the maturity of blockchain technology for mainstream finance. The fact that a single internal error could, even for a brief moment, create a financial instrument larger than the global economy is a sobering reminder of the nascent and volatile nature of this space. The story was notably highlighted by the satirical site Web3 is Going Just Great, which chronicles mishaps and scams in the crypto world, adding a layer of irony to an already serious situation.
