The LSE Directory / Crypto exchanges
Paxos is a regulated blockchain infrastructure company that issues fully-reserved stablecoins and provides digital asset custody, brokerage and settlement services to banks, fintechs and other enterprises. It operates as a New York chartered trust company, Paxos Trust Company, meaning customer assets are held in bankruptcy remote, segregated accounts under state banking supervision rather than as general corporate assets. Its stablecoin lineup includes Pax Dollar (USDP), Pax Gold (PAXG, a gold backed token), PayPal USD (PYUSD, issued on behalf of PayPal) and Global Dollar (USDG, issued through its Singapore entity). Beyond issuance, Paxos runs a crypto brokerage as a service layer that lets partner platforms offer buying, selling and custody of crypto to their own end users under Paxos's licenses. Paxos's core differentiator is its regulatory chassis rather than product breadth. Where many stablecoin and custody competitors operate offshore or under lighter touch money transmitter licenses, Paxos built its business around a state trust charter, and since December 2025 a conditionally approved national trust bank charter from the OCC, plus a major payment institution license from Singapore's central bank obtained in 2022, when it became the first US-based blockchain platform to hold one. Its customers are enterprises rather than retail traders: PayPal, Revolut and OANDA embed Paxos's infrastructure rather than compete with it. With Global Dollar (USDG), Paxos also departed from standard issuer economics in the category; rather than keeping all yield earned on stablecoin reserves, USDG shares reserve income with the network of distributing platforms, which includes Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei and Robinhood. Paxos was founded in 2012 by Charles Cascarilla and Rich Teo as itBit, a bitcoin exchange, and took the Paxos name in 2015 after becoming one of the first companies to receive a NYDFS limited purpose trust charter for virtual currency activity. It raised roughly 540 million dollars in venture funding through April 2021, including a 300 million dollar Series D at a 2.4 billion dollar valuation. Its partnership with PayPal, announced in 2020, led to the 2023 launch of PYUSD, which Paxos custodies and for which it publishes monthly reserve attestations. The company's record also includes a serious compliance failure: in February 2023 the NYDFS ordered Paxos to stop minting Binance branded BUSD over inadequate anti money laundering oversight of the Binance relationship, and in August 2025 Paxos settled with the NYDFS for 48.5 million dollars, a 26.5 million dollar penalty plus a 22 million dollar commitment to compliance upgrades, covering AML lapses from 2019 to 2023. In December 2025 the OCC conditionally approved Paxos Trust Company's conversion into a national trust bank, one of five digital asset firms, alongside Ripple, Circle, BitGo and Fidelity, to receive that approval the same day, pending standard pre-opening requirements. Paxos also acquired MPC wallet and DeFi custody provider Fordefi for more than 100 million dollars in November 2025, its second acquisition within a year after buying Finland based stablecoin issuer Membrane Finance in February 2025. Its USDG stablecoin, launched in November 2024, had grown to roughly 2.75 billion dollars in supply within eighteen months, backed by a network of more than 130 partner platforms.
