Key Takeaways:
- Paxos accidentally minted and then burned 300 trillion PYUSD in a 22-minute window due to an internal technical error.
- The massive minting briefly caused PYUSD to dip 0.5% and led Aave to temporarily freeze trading of the stablecoin.
- Paxos confirmed there was no security breach and that all customer funds remain safe.
Paxos, the issuer of PayPal USD (PYUSD), accidentally minted and then burned 300 trillion tokens within 30 minutes on Wednesday, sparking confusion across the crypto community.
Blockchain data showed the tokens were created at 7:12 p.m. UTC and destroyed 22 minutes later by sending them to a burn address.
PYUSD is operational and fully backed at a 1:1 ratio.
— Omer Goldberg (@omeragoldberg) October 15, 2025
Earlier today, 300 trillion was minted and subsequently burned.
We've temporarily frozen PYUSD markets on @aave as we investigate the issue.
Funds are safe! pic.twitter.com/2x0QyvrJ7d
The nominal value of the mistakenly minted tokens was about $300 trillion – over twice the world’s combined GDP, according to IMF data.
Following the event, Aave temporarily froze PYUSD trading due to what Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg described as an “unexpected high-magnitude transaction.”
Paxos later clarified on X that the incident resulted from an internal technical error during a system transfer and assured users that no security breach occurred and customer funds remained safe.
At 3:12 PM EST, Paxos mistakenly minted excess PYUSD as part of an internal transfer. Paxos immediately identified the error and burned the excess PYUSD.
— Paxos (@Paxos) October 15, 2025
This was an internal technical error. There is no security breach. Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root…
The company said it had fixed the issue and identified the root cause.
Despite the mishap, PYUSD retained its dollar peg, with only a brief 0.5% price dip.
The stablecoin currently has a market cap exceeding $2.3 billion, ranking it among the top stablecoins alongside USDT, USDC, and DAI.
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