Paxos

A regulated financial technology company and trust company founded in 2012 that specializes in blockchain-based settlement infrastructure and regulated digital asset issuance. Paxos holds trust company charters in New York and other jurisdictions, allowing it to issue regulated digital assets and provide institutional settlement services under financial regulatory supervision. Its key products include Paxos Standard (USDP, a regulated stablecoin), PAX Gold (PAXG, a gold-backed token), and the Paxos Settlement Service (used by financial institutions to settle equities trades on blockchain). Paxos is the issuer of PYUSD, PayPal's stablecoin, operating as the regulated infrastructure provider behind PayPal's digital dollar product. Paxos also previously issued BUSD, Binance's branded stablecoin, until the New York Department of Financial Services ordered it to stop new BUSD issuance in February 2023 due to Binance-related compliance concerns. Example: Paxos serves as the regulated trust company behind PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin, which launched in August 2023. Paxos holds the underlying reserves in cash and short-term US Treasuries, conducts monthly attestations of reserves by independent accountants, and operates under NYDFS supervision. This structure allows PayPal to offer stablecoin functionality to its users while relying on Paxos's existing regulated infrastructure rather than applying for its own money transmission licenses across all relevant jurisdictions. Why it matters for Web3: Paxos represents the archetype of a regulated crypto infrastructure provider that enables traditional financial companies to offer digital asset products without building their own compliance infrastructure from scratch. As stablecoin regulation advances globally under frameworks like the GENIUS Act, the role of regulated issuers like Paxos becomes more central to the permissible stablecoin ecosystem, with non-bank entities potentially required to use licensed issuers to participate in payment stablecoin markets.

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