I learned of Paxos in July 2020 when the crypto world lit up with rumors that PayPal would be launching a crypto product – further vindication that crypto was going mainstream. With Square already offering crypto buying and selling services via its CashApp, it was only a matter of time until PayPal took a similar move. What was equally as interesting though is the mention of a company called Paxos that PayPal would actually be partnering with to launch this service. This partnership has not been officially announced yet, but the rumor mill has been swirling. I started googling Paxos and have been surprised at just how much this company does. They seem to have their fingers in every aspect of the crypto trading and blockchain infrastructure worlds.
This screenshot from their homepage gives a sense of the broad range of products Paxos offers.
There are certainly other “super” companies in the blockchain space that do a little bit of everything, but Paxos does seem unique in that they have generated headlines across most of these products in the last two years. In addition to a white-labeled “Crypto Brokerage” product that Revolut and likely PayPal will be using, they are also one of the biggest players in the stablecoin space and have significant private blockchain projects in flight for post-trade settlement of equities and a range of commodities. It’s interesting that their business model spans both private and public blockchains.
I don’t have too much more to add here, but I did find it helpful to put together a high-level timeline of what Paxos has been up to and some links out to articles. While there is a lot of hype around Coinbase and its potential to be the first crypto IPO, I’m curious to see if Paxos enters into the conversation more as one of the key players in the space.
2012: itBit crypto exchange launches in Singapore (itBit is now a product under the Paxos umbrella)
2015: Receive trust charter from New York State Department of Financial Services
2018: Launch PAX stablecoin
2019 (September): Launch PAX Gold tied to the value of gold (literally get a claim on a gold bar stored in London)
2019 (September): Announce that development of a stablecoin for Binance
2020 (February): Complete first blockchain-based settlement of equities partnering with Credit Suisse (“Paxos Settlement Service”). This is a really good article from Fortune on this.
2020 (July): Announce they are powering Revolut’s crypto trading product in the US (first user of the Paxos “Crypto Brokerage” product)
2020 (July): Rumors emerge that PayPal will be using Paxos to offer crypto services to its customers
If you’re looking for more on Paxos, these three podcasts with their CEO & Co-Founder Charles Cascarilla were pretty good.
Jeff Cangialosi 