Aave Freezes PYUSD Markets after Unprecedented 300T Mint and Burn

Blockchain data showed stablecoin issuer Paxos both minted and burned about $300 trillion worth of the PayPal USD stablecoin within 30 minutes, leaving many crypto users scratching their heads.

In a Wednesday X post following the mint and burn, Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg said Aave would be temporarily freezing trades for PayPal USD (PYUSD) after an โ€œunexpected high-magnitude transactionโ€ of minting and burning the stablecoin. Ethereum blockchain data showed Paxos minting 300 trillion of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin at 7:12 pm UTC and then burning the entire amount 22 minutes later by sending it to an inaccessible wallet.

The 300 trillion PYUSD mint. Source: Etherscan

In a Wednesday X post, Paxos said it had โ€œmistakenly minted excess PYUSD as part of an internal transfer.โ€

โ€œThis was an internal technical error,โ€ said Paxos. โ€œThere is no security breach. Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root cause.โ€

$300 trillion is more than twice the Gross Domestic Product for every country on earth, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.