Paxos Says It Has Issued $50 Mln of Recently-Launched Dollar-Backed Stablecoin

Blockchain Trust company Paxos has issued around $50 million worth of its recently launched U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, according to a Tweet from a senior employee October 15.

As previously reported, the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based stablecoin, dubbed Paxos Standard Token (PAX), sealed regulatory approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) in early September.

Data from Etherscan as of press time appears to substantiate that 50,838,503.47 PAX worth $52,275,897.44 are in circulation.

Yesterday’s tweet from Paxos’ vice president of marketing and communications, Dorothy Jean Chang, notes that Paxos had only “just” officially announced the release of $36 million worth of the coin during the first month since its launch, “2 hrs” before her tweet about hitting the $50 million mark.

The rapid pace of token issuance comes as Paxos is making the bold claim to have “achieved the fastest, widest institutional adoption of any digital asset.”

Ahead of Oct. 15’s official announcement – $36 million – and Chang’s subsequent tweet – $50 million – on Sept. 28, Paxos’ third-party auditor Withum released its audit report for the firm, corroborating that Paxos held around $14.6 million in its reserve account, which it suggested was roughly equivalent to the number of PAX tokens in circulation at that time.

In its official announcement yesterday, Paxos says that “six of the top ten crypto exchanges” have listed the asset, including Binance and OKEx, adding that OKcoin and itBit will soon follow suit.

As reported, third top crypto exchange by market cap OKEx announced yesterday it would be listing four stablecoins at once – PAX, TrueUSD (TUSD), USD Coin (USDC), and Gemini Dollar (GUSD).

Also yesterday, U.S.-based crypto payment processor BitPay announced it had started to accept two stablecoins for merchant settlement, GUSD and USDC.

PAX is indeed vying with several other newly-issued stablecoins, having announced its official NYDFS-approved launch the very same day as the WInklevoss twins unveiled their own own New York regulator-approved, dollar-backed, ECR-20 compatible stablecoin, the Gemini dollar.

Paxos’ announcement yesterday also broke the same day as stalwart, if controversial, stablecoin Tether (USDT) slipped from its U.S. dollar peg and was trading below its historical trading range, amid reports of an alleged loss of market trust as unclear (if notably unconfirmed) banking complications appear to beset both Tether and associated crypto exchange Bitfinex.

As previously reported, Tether’s past history of large-scale USDT issuance has in the past drawn both speculation and criticism in regards to its possible impact on Bitcoin (BTC)’s price performance.