YouTube allowed American content creators to receive their earnings in PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin (PYPL), according to a Fortune report, which cited PayPal’s chief crypto officer May Zabaneh.
“The beauty of what we’ve created is that YouTube doesn’t have to touch cryptocurrencies and therefore we can help eliminate that complexity,” Zabaneh said. He added that PayPal introduced the PYUSD payment option for payment recipients in the third quarter of 2025, and YouTube decided to extend it only to US creators.
The move highlights how major tech platforms, including Apple, Airbnb and X, are increasingly exploring stablecoins as payment avenues, allowing companies to avoid directly handling digital assets. The use of PYUSD by YouTube, which is part of Google (GOOG), marks one of the most prominent examples of the PayPal stablecoin being used for creator monetization, expanding its role beyond backend payments into consumer-facing revenue streams.
PYUSD, which was introduced in August 2023 and is issued by stablecoin infrastructure company Paxos, was designed for seamless conversions, cross-border transfers, subscriptions, vendor payments and near-instant settlements within the PayPal ecosystem, with an emphasis on everyday commerce and reducing bank delays and volatility risks.
The stablecoin has since gained traction, gaining support on Visa’s stablecoin settlement platform along with and EURC from Circle. PYUSD is now the sixth-largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization of $3.9 billion, according to data tracked by CoinGecko.
PayPal and Google did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
