MoonPay and PayPal Are Next Leveling Stablecoins With PYUSDx

TLDR

• PYUSD is PayPal’s stablecoin. It’s a solid product, though to date it has been underutilized, mostly due to the dominance of USDT and USDC.
• That could change now. MoonPay’s PYUSDx is a framework that allows devs to custom-design a branded stablecoin fully backed by PYUSD.
• It essentially allows businesses that want their own stablecoin to create one without having to build their own system, blockchain, or liquidity. 

Stablecoins are having a moment. They’re quickly becoming the building blocks of entire financial applications. And MoonPay just made it a whole lot easier to build with them.

Last week, MoonPay, M0, and PayPal announced PYUSDx — a new framework that lets developers launch their own application-specific stablecoins backed by PayPal USD (PYUSD). Builders can now create their own branded stablecoins in days, not months. What does that mean, and why does it matter? Great questions. Time to get after it. 

Stablecoins – The Overview

Before we get into the details, a quick recap. A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, usually pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which can swing wildly in price, stablecoins are meant to stay… stable. Hence the name.

PYUSD is PayPal’s own stablecoin. It’s issued by Paxos Trust Company, which is a federally regulated banking institution. Think of it as a digital dollar with a regulated, trustworthy foundation behind it.

What Is This New PYUSDx Thing?

PYUSDx is a tokenization and issuance framework operated by MoonPay Digital Assets Limited. MoonPay? Why does that sound familiar? Probably because we just mentioned the company a couple of months ago! When then acting Chairman of the CFTC, Caroline Pham, left the agency, MoonPay was where she went. 

The platform allows developers to create their own stablecoins backed by PYUSD — without building all the complex infrastructure from scratch.

It’s kind of like an RWA built on top of another RWA. While that sounds a bit strange, the implications are anything but.

Tokens created through PYUSDx are separate from PYUSD itself. They won’t be usable directly within PayPal or Venmo. Think of PYUSDx tokens as custom-branded digital dollars, built on top of PYUSD’s trusted foundation, designed for specific apps and platforms.

Here’s what developers get with PYUSDx:

• Branded stablecoins: Launch stablecoins with your own branding, backed by PYUSD
• Fast time-to-market: Go from concept to launch in days, not months
• Cross-chain compatibility: Works across multiple blockchain networks via M0’s ecosystem
• Reserve transparency: On-chain reporting and reserve validation built in
• Competitive economics: More flexible than other stablecoin-backed products on the market

Why Should Anyone Care About More Stablecoin News?

Yeah. We know. And we get it. Stablecoins and stablecoin news can be a bit boring. Many new crypto users want the excitement of trading and price volatility. But stablecoins are equally important for a different reason. If we want institutional capital flowing into the space and mass adoption, stablecoins will be how it happens.

And it has already started. The stablecoin market is growing fast. According to the announcement, the number of newly issued stablecoins with more than $10 million in supply jumped 89% in 2025 alone. 

(MoonPay used data from the Defiant for their release. Not sure why they didn’t come to Dypto Crypto…)

Developers want to build with stablecoins. They are a hot narrative in finance, politics, and crypto at the moment. But assembling the infrastructure to do so has historically been a massive undertaking.

PYUSDx removes that barrier. Rather than spending months piecing together issuance, custody, and liquidity systems, developers can plug into a ready-made framework and start building immediately.

MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright put it like this: “Through PYUSDx, the MoonPay Group is extending its issuance and distribution capabilities to make PYUSD more accessible to developers, reducing the technical and operational complexity of bringing application-specific stablecoins to market.”

For PayPal, the move also makes strategic sense. PYUSD has lagged behind competitors like USDC and USDT in overall circulation. PYUSDx gives PayPal’s stablecoin a way to expand its reach through third-party apps and platforms — without requiring PayPal to directly integrate those tokens into its own consumer products.

Any Takers So Far?

Yes! One, so far. Hey…it’s been less than a week. We can’t expect them to launch with 10+ builders.

The first developer using PYUSDx is USD.ai, which is using the platform to back a stablecoin specifically designed for AI infrastructure.

That’s not a coincidence. Just days before the PYUSDx announcement, MoonPay launched MoonPay Agents. It’s a non-custodial software layer that enables AI agents to create wallets, fund them, and execute transactions autonomously. 

The two products together paint a clear picture: MoonPay is positioning itself as the financial infrastructure layer connecting regulated stablecoin issuers with the next generation of AI-driven applications.

As Luca Prosperi, CEO of M0, noted: “We believe every fintech developer will eventually utilize a solution like PYUSDx.”

What PYUSDx Means for New Crypto Users

If you’re new to crypto, you might be wondering: Does any of this affect me directly?

Not right away. PYUSDx is primarily a developer tool. You won’t be logging into an app and minting your own stablecoins tomorrow. But the downstream effects are real.

As more developers use frameworks like PYUSDx to build financial applications, it opens the door to more user-friendly, stablecoin-powered products. That includes everything from payments to savings tools to AI-driven portfolio management. The infrastructure being built today is what will power the crypto experiences of tomorrow.

For now, it’s worth keeping an eye on which apps adopt PYUSDx technology and which stablecoins start popping up as a result.

The Birth of Layered RWAs?

We think we just coined the next big crypto buzzword. You heard it first on Dypto Crypto, folks. You are welcome.

PYUSDx is part of a broader trend: the financial system is moving onchain, and the tools to build it are becoming more accessible by the day. What once required months of engineering work and regulatory navigation can now be done in days, using trusted, regulated foundations.

For developers, that’s a game-changer. For crypto newcomers, it’s a sign that the space is maturing. Apps built on this infrastructure will likely be simpler, safer, and more intuitive than anything that’s come before. This should be a fun story to watch as it progresses.