The move deepens YouTube’s long-standing partnership with PayPal and positions the video giant as a potential on-ramp for millions of users into stablecoins. Meanwhile, Binance is doubling down on support for USD1, the Trump-linked stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, by adding new fee-free trading pairs and converting all BUSD collateral into USD1. The exchange’s decision essentially embeds USD1 even more deeply into its liquidity systems as the stablecoin picks up momentum despite a pause in new issuance.
YouTube Embraces PYUSD
YouTube took a huge step toward mainstream crypto integration by allowing US-based creators to receive their payouts in PayPal’s stablecoin, PYUSD. The move was confirmed by PayPal’s head of crypto May Zabaneh to Fortune, and it quietly introduces one of the world’s largest creator ecosystems to stablecoin payments without requiring YouTube to interact with crypto directly.
Zabaneh explained that PayPal’s infrastructure takes away the technical complexity, which means that creators can opt into PYUSD payouts just as easily as they would choose any traditional payment method. The feature is currently limited to US creators, but is still a massive shift in YouTube’s stance toward digital assets.
For years, YouTube walked a very cautious line with crypto, and even frustrated creators with shadowbans and content restrictions despite crypto-related channels growing massively in popularity. By enabling PYUSD payouts, the platform certainly seems to be warming up to digital assets at a time when stablecoins are surging in global adoption across traditional finance, fintech, and enterprise payments.
YouTube has long relied on PayPal for both user-facing payments and for creator AdSense withdrawals, so expanding that partnership into stablecoin payouts was a natural extension. The decision also positions YouTube as a potential on-ramp for millions of users who may not yet interact with stablecoins but trust the platforms that are involved.
The development comes during a period of growth for PYUSD itself. Since launching in mid-2023, the token has grown from a niche product to a stablecoin with a market cap of roughly $3.9 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
PYUSD’s all-time market cap growth (Source: CoinMarketCap)
The growth has been especially dramatic in 2024, with its market cap rising from around $500 million at the start of the year. Much of that expansion happened in September after integrations with Spark’s lending markets and Bitfinex’s Stable, an institutional-focused blockchain designed for large-scale stablecoin activity. If YouTube creators begin adopting PYUSD for payouts, the stablecoin could gain another major catalyst.
Binance Deepens Support for Trump’s USD1 Stablecoin
In other stablecoin news, Binance expanded its support for World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin, deepening its integration into the exchange’s ecosystem and giving the Trump-linked token even more visibility in global crypto markets.
Binance announced that it added new fee-free trading pairs for USD1, allowing users to trade the stablecoin against major assets including Ethereum, Solana and BNB, alongside Bitcoin, which was already listed. As part of the shift, Binance will also convert all collateral assets backing its own legacy stablecoin, BUSD, into USD1 at a one-to-one ratio in the next week.
Announcement from World Liberty Financial
The exchange said the move will make USD1 a core component of its updated collateral model. This will effectively embed the Trump family’s stablecoin more deeply into its trading and liquidity systems.
Zach Witkoff, co-founder and CEO of World Liberty Financial, welcomed the expansion by saying it represents a major milestone in the company’s mission to make digital dollar stablecoins accessible to a wider global audience. USD1 launched in March on both Ethereum and BNB Chain, backed by US Treasury bills, and quickly climbed to the position of the seventh-largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of $2.7 billion.
USD1’s all-time market cap (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Its rise has been fueled in part by MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment firm, which used USD1 for a $2 billion investment in Binance earlier this year. Despite the strong market presence, there has been no new issuance of USD1 for several months, and its supply edged down slightly from a peak of $3 billion in late October.
The move also arrives against a politically charged backdrop, as President Donald Trump, who co-founded World Liberty Financial with his sons, pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao just seven weeks ago. Zhao was sentenced to four months in federal prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls at Binance. Trump defended the pardon by saying that many people urged him to intervene and that Zhao’s offense “is not even a crime.” Overall, the ties between Binance and USD1 are becoming more and more evident.
