HostWBTC vs PYUSD — price, size and safety, side by side
WBTC (Ethereum) vs PYUSD (Ethereum) — every figure is the freshest dated measurement we hold for that token, never a live-feed guess. Prices stamped 2026-10-16 / 2026-10-16.
WBTC vs PYUSD — normalized performance, 2026-09-08 to 2026-10-16T18:15:28
| WBTC | PYUSD | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $82.29K | $1.00 |
| Market cap | $9.63B | $2.87B |
| 24h volume | $185.99M DEX | $22.51M DEX |
| Liquidity | $220.70M | $61.19M |
| FDV | $9.63B | $1.76B |
| Holders | 197,266 | 111,057 |
| Age (days) | 1,583 | 268 |
| Safety grade | C | B |
Where they differ
- WBTC measures ~3.4× the market cap of PYUSD
- WBTC measures ~3.6× the liquidity of PYUSD
- WBTC measures ~8.3× the 24h volume of PYUSD
- WBTC measures ~1.8× the holder count of PYUSD
- over the shared window WBTC moved +5.71% while PYUSD moved +0.06%
What the data says
WBTC
WBTC is the original wrapped Bitcoin — the ERC-20 that put BTC on Ethereum's DeFi rails in 2019, custodied by BitGo with a mint-and-burn pipeline run through KYC'd merchants. The deployment 0x2260fac5e5542a773aa44fbcfedf7c193bc2c599 is the canonical mint, one of the oldest contract addresses in DeFi; our October 9, 2026 snapshot reads $220.7 million of tracked pool liquidity on this pair set — a slice of a float that spans every major venue.
The honest frame is unchanged since launch: holding WBTC means trusting BitGo's custody — the reserve is attested and the mint pipeline is transparent, but the claim is institutional, not cryptographic. Coinbase's cbBTC arrived as the regulated-competitor answer; the two trade the same BTC exposure with different custodians, and the depth split between them is the market's live verdict on whose custody it prefers.
PYUSD
PYUSD is what a stablecoin looks like when it's built for regulators first and DeFi second. PayPal USD is issued not by PayPal directly but by Paxos Trust Company, a New York–chartered trust supervised by NYDFS, with reserves held in dollar deposits, U.S. Treasuries, and equivalents, attested monthly. The Ethereum deployment lives at 0x6c3ea9036406852006290770bedfcaba0e23a0e8, where HostDeFi's October 9, 2026 snapshot records roughly $61 million of tracked pool liquidity and $11 million of daily on-chain volume — modest next to USDC or USDT, in keeping with a coin whose primary life is inside PayPal and Venmo balances rather than on DEXes.
Read the contract powers through the regulated-issuer lens or you'll misread them as red flags. PYUSD's contract can mint (against dollars in), burn (against dollars out), pause transfers entirely, and freeze or even wipe balances at specific addresses under Paxos's asset-protection role. On an anonymous token, that list is a rug in waiting; here it is the legally mandated toolkit of a New York trust company, and NYDFS supervision is precisely the reason those powers exist. The trade you make holding PYUSD is explicit: maximum issuer accountability, in exchange for maximum issuer control.
FAQ
Which is bigger, WBTC or PYUSD?
By tracked market cap: WBTC (Ethereum) measures $9.63B and PYUSD (Ethereum) measures $2.87B — dated snapshots, not a live feed.
Which is safer, WBTC or PYUSD?
On the contract checks we publish: WBTC (Ethereum) grades C and PYUSD (Ethereum) grades B. A grade is a structural check on the contract, not a promise about the asset.
How have WBTC and PYUSD performed over the shared window?
Between 2026-09-08 and 2026-10-16T18:15:28, the measured snapshots show WBTC at +5.71% and PYUSD at +0.06%.
The grade column is the one CMC's compare page cannot print — our grade is computed from the contract itself (mint/freeze authority, liquidity, holder concentration). Changes are measured over the shared window stated on the chart, 2026-09-08→2026-10-16T18:15:28; a token with fewer measured points measures a shorter span inside it.
Figures are dated on-chain snapshots, not a live feed. Safety grades are structural checks — not investment advice. Free · no signup · a HostDeFi product.