PayPal Stock Soars as Its Stablecoin PYUSD Crosses $900M Market Cap

PayPal USD (PYUSD), the company's stablecoin launched in August 2023, has been performing well. Data shows that its market cap has jumped sharply in the past few weeks.

PayPal stock has entered a bull market, rising by over 26% from its lowest point this month.

PayPal USD stablecoin’s market cap

PayPal USD (PYUSD), the company’s stablecoin launched in August 2023, has been performing well.

Data shows that its market cap has jumped sharply in the past few weeks, crossing the psychological level of $907 million on Aug. 21. This marks significant growth for a stablecoin whose market cap started the year at $264 million.

Stablecoin issuers like PayPal make money in two main ways: interest rates and transaction costs. With U.S. interest rates between 5.25% and 5.5%, PayPal could earn over $50 million annually in interest.

Tether (USDT), the biggest stablecoin, with over $117 billion in assets, made a quarterly profit of over $4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Most of this revenue came from interest, while the rest was from mark-to-market gains on assets like Bitcoin and gold.

PayPal’s challenge is that the stablecoin industry has become highly competitive. In addition to Tether, Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) has become popular, having over $34 billion in assets. Ripple is currently developing its stablecoin offering, RLUSD, which will be backed 1:1 with the US dollar.

Moreover, Ethena has launched USDe, which has accumulated over $3 billion in assets, while Ondo OUSD has $340 million in assets. These stablecoins are becoming popular because they reward their holders with monthly returns. For instance, USDY has a 5.35% APY derived from U.S. Treasuries investments.

PayPal stock soars

PayPal’s stock is also benefitting, having risen to its highest level in over 52 weeks, pushing its valuation to over $71 billion. Still, the stock remains much lower than its pandemic-era high of $309 when its valuation peaked at over $300 billion.

The stock jump follows recent upgrades by several analysts. For instance, Daiwa analysts have upgraded the stock from neutral to outperform, stating that the company will come out on top despite facing significant competition from the likes of Apple, Google, and Affirm.

Meanwhile, Argus Research analysts have upgraded the stock from a buy to a hold, while analysts at Mizuho, JPMorgan, and Barclays have maintained their outperform ratings.

The recovery also follows PayPal posting mixed second-quarter financial results. Revenue increased by 8% to $7.8 billion, while active accounts declined again to 429 million. PayPal also continued returning cash to investors through stock buybacks.

While it is still early, the stock could continue to rally now that it has crossed over on the golden cross chart pattern. This popular bullish pattern occurs when the 50-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages cross.

Interestingly, the stock has now crossed a crucial resistance level at $70.69, which was the previous year-to-date high. The recovery is also taking place in a high-volume environment, while the accumulation/distribution indicator has been trending up.