You Won’t Believe What the SEC Did With PayPal’s Stablecoin! đŸŽ©đŸ’°

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In the boundless expanse of America’s financial landscape, where men in tall buildings contemplate the worth of things they seldom touch, a peculiar drama unfolded—a farce worthy of the Russian stage. It concerns not bread, not war, but instead, those digital tokens that drift above us all—stablecoins. And at the heart of this tale? PayPal. Yes, that monument to capitalism, as familiar as an old peasant’s boots, and just as involved in everyone’s daily life.

Word reached society that PayPal’s stablecoin adventure—forged with the grandly American name “PYUSD”—had drawn the eye of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the most vigilant of watchmen. But lo! The drama was more comedy than tragedy! In the spring of that most turbulent year, PayPal, in its filings, revealed that the mighty SEC, after much rattling of sabers and a November swoop trailing subpoenas, decided to lay down their arms. No action! No drama, only paperwork. The bureaucrat’s ballet quietly concluded—with a shrug, not a bang.

One imagines the SEC sifting through mountains of documents, wearing the grim expressions of Dostoevsky’s clerks, only to realize they’d find more excitement reading War and Peace for the eighteenth time. “We are cooperating,” PayPal had announced, with all the enthusiasm of a child told to clean the samovar. In February, the news arrived by post: the great inquiry was as finished as last week’s borscht.

PayPal, never shy of self-affirmation, declared their mysterious coin “fully redeemable” in American dollars—far more solid than Rubles during the harvest. Dollar deposits, treasuries, and cash equivalents! You’d think a man could sleep at night with such assurances. And yet, the market for this coin is more crowded than the Moscow tram at sunset. Tether, Circle—names as common as peasants at a wedding. PYUSD tries to dance, but with a market cap of $880 million, it’s a mere minnow swimming beside whales (Tether at $148.5 billion, a veritable Leviathan). PyUSD’s best days seem as fleeting as youth and as forgettable as last year’s snows.

“But wait!” cries the merchant. “Growth, at last!” Indeed, CoinGecko’s almanac notes a 75% increase in circulating supply since the calendar’s page turned to 2025. Though, ever the cruel mistress, Fate ensures it’s still 14% short of the summer’s glory days of August 2024, when PYUSD flirted with $1 billion. What is progress but a fleeting comfort, like vodka in the winter?

Earnings on PYUSD, Coinbase Partnership

Perhaps the old czars of PayPal have a trick left. On April’s twenty-third day, they announced rewards fit for the modern serf: 3.7% annually for US citizens who horde—er, “hold”—PYUSD in loyalty. “Let your coins work for you,” they whisper. “Or at the very least, distract you from the futility of existence.”

The following morning, bells rang again as PayPal signed a treaty with Coinbase, hoping to lure the masses into using PYUSD for things yet unimagined. Their leader, Alex Chriss, declared partnership and progress with the flourish of a man who has never seen Moscow in mud season: “We put PYUSD at the center!” he boasted, presumably while standing in a conference room richer than most Russian villages.

If that were not enough to warm the spirits, PayPal declared robust earnings, enough to make even the most obstinate analyst nod in grudging approval: $1.33 per share in the first quarter, a solid trouncing over some poor analyst’s $1.16 estimate. Revenues up a single percentage—small victories, as the great Tolstoy once wrote, are sometimes the sweetest. At $7.8 billion, one imagines even the SEC might glance with envy. And with that, share repurchases flourished, the numbers marched, and the machine pressed onward—unmoved by subpoenas, unshaken by existential doubt, as relentless as the Russian winter.

So ends this tale—for now—with no villain, little heroism, and just enough absurdity to make Chekhov smile. đŸ’žđŸ’Œ

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2025-04-30 09:11