In a startling blockchain mishap, Paxos, the blockchain infrastructure provider and PayPal’s partner for its stablecoin PYUSD, mistakenly minted $300 trillion worth of tokens on Wednesday — an amount that dwarfs the world’s total economic output.

The colossal figure was first spotted on Etherscan, a public blockchain explorer for the Ethereum network, where users noticed an unusual spike in PYUSD supply. Paxos later confirmed that the minting was the result of a “technical error” during an internal transfer, not an external hack.

“This was an internal technical error. There is no security breach. Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root cause,”
Paxos stated in a post on social media.

The company said it “immediately identified the error and burned the excess PYUSD”, resolving the issue within roughly 20 minutes.

PYUSD, launched by PayPal in 2023, is a U.S. dollar–pegged stablecoin that is fully backed by dollar deposits, U.S. Treasuries, and equivalent cash reserves. It is designed to maintain a 1:1 redemption ratio with the U.S. dollar.

However, the incident underscores a critical limitation of stablecoins — their stability depends on issuers’ governance and auditing controls, not on blockchain mechanics alone. Theoretically, there are not enough U.S. dollars in existence to back $300 trillion, a sum that exceeds twice the world’s total GDP.

The error comes amid the growing mainstream adoption of stablecoins by financial institutions and payment providers. Despite the glitch, PYUSD remains the world’s sixth-largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization of approximately $2.6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

While Paxos swiftly corrected the issue, the event serves as a cautionary reminder of how even minor technical missteps in the blockchain ecosystem can produce astronomically large — albeit temporary — anomalies in global financial data.