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Is a PayPal Stablecoin a Good, or Bad Idea?

TL;DR

  • PayPal released a US dollar pegged stablecoin known as PYUSD this year on the Ethereum ​blockchain​.

  • People are up in arms about the greater influence it will have on the crypto and finance industry. Both 'good' and ‘bad.’

  • Debates are hard to settle. So we'll defer to ​the little girl from the Old El Paso ad​ and say "why don't we have both?" Centralized stablecoins (and monetary systems as a whole) are fine by us, as long as there are plenty of healthy decentralized options to choose from.

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Okay okay okay. Let’s play pretend.

We’re in debate class.

The question is:

"​What is your position on the role of governance, supporting innovation in the field of bio technology?​"

Jk, jk. This is a crypto publication.

So it’s a debate about ​stablecoins​, specifically:

"Pro-PayPal stablecoin" vs. "Anti-PayPal stablecoin".

We reviewed the materials last class (we actually wrote about this in August).

And now you get to take sides.

Here is a refresher:

PayPal released a US dollar pegged stablecoin known as PYUSD this year on the Ethereum ​blockchain​.

People are up in arms about the greater influence it will have on the crypto and finance industry. Both 'good' and ‘bad.’

So here's the breakdown:

Up first: Pro-PayPal Stablecoin

  • Seeing a globally recognized/utilized brand like PayPal embrace blockchain tech helps to legitimize both stablecoins and the broader crypto space.

  • PayPal is potentially exposing tons of new people to ​Web3​/crypto. There are millions of people connected to PayPal...merchants, suppliers, customers, parent companies.

  • If PYUSD was accessible across multiple blockchains...whoa. It could make for a much easier crypto onboarding process!

  • A stablecoin hosted on PayPal could help a whole slew of people, that don’t have access to traditional banking, become banked (yay!)

Pretty cool.

Okay, now for: Anti-PayPal Stablecoin

  • The whole point of Web3 is decentralization. PYUSD could open up TONS of doors for Web3, but ultimately it would mean there is a large, centralized tech company holding a bunch of power and money. And that's exactly what we're trying to get away from.

Debates are hard to settle. So we'll defer to ​the little girl from the Old El Paso ad​ and say "why don't we have both?"

Centralized stablecoins (and monetary systems as a whole) are fine by us, as long as there are plenty of healthy decentralized options to choose from.