Paxos, one of the stablecoin issuers, revealed that it mistakenly issued a $300 trillion offering of PayPal USD stablecoin yesterday, Wednesday, and quickly corrected the error within minutes by burning the difference, while blockchain transaction records on the Etherscan website confirmed a wave of issuance and burning transactions. It exposes a rare and poignant “clerical” error in the notoriously tightly regulated world of stablecoin issuance.
Transactions show the company mistakenly adds 6 zeros during the issuance process and burns through the entire $300 trillion PayPal USD balance within minutes, then reissues the correct amount to become a $300 million reserve.
(Paxos)@Paxos)300T accidentally hit $PYUSD 7 hours ago they added six extra zeros by mistake!
The error was quickly corrected as they burned the 300T $PYUSD and properly refurbished 300M $PYUSD instead. pic.twitter.com/ktQQ88RfHw– Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 16, 2025
A problem that stablecoin issuers have already faced
These errors are not entirely uncommon in the crypto industry, and a transfer to the wrong address cannot be reversed once completed, but stablecoin issuers have broader powers, as they can step in to resolve problems by returning or burning erroneously issued balances. Paxos’ mistake is similar to other incidents in the industry’s history. In 2019, Tether issued a new $5 billion offering of Tether stablecoin (Tether-USDT), quickly burning through the excess.
In May 2021, BlockFi also offered large amounts of Bitcoin to users instead of a promotional stablecoin, and had to perform a complex transfer reversal in order to correct this error. In the same context, the DeversiFi update – in December 2022 – generated transfer fees (gas fees) for the Ethereum transaction network worth $23.7 million, and the developers managed to overcome this ordeal thanks to the help of the community.
Stablecoins permeate the technical ecosystem of the crypto sector
The above highlights the fragility of crypto industry structures, especially when automated systems handle large volumes of transactions. As of mid-October 2025, the market value of the stablecoin sector reached approximately $306.18 billion, a growth of 47% year-on-year. This growth is mainly driven by major players, including Tether – which alone constitutes 59% of the total industry value – and USD Coin-USDC, which is issued by Circle. (Circle).
Although the PayPal USD stablecoin is in limited supply, it continues to attract attention; As of October 2025, the coin’s market cap was $2.32 billion, which is equivalent to its circulating supply of 2.32 billion PYUSD coins, which regularly trade around $0.9997.
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