PayPal & Solana

Posted on | by Leon Hinde | Leave a Comment on PayPal & Solana

PayPal has chosen the Solana blockchain to expand its stablecoin, PayPal USD, marking its first move beyond the Ethereum ecosystem.

According to an announcement on May 28, PYUSD has been added to the Solana network, allowing users to perform transactions at a lower cost. The move seeks to expand the uses of PYUSD stablecoin as a payment method for small and daily purchases.

Solana processes up to 65,000 transactions per second at costs as low as $0.0025, significantly outpacing Ethereum’s 15 transactions per second with higher fees, which may vary from $1 to $50 during times of congestion. ​In other words, while a transaction on Ethereum could take a few minutes to process, the same transfer using Solana could be completed in less than a minute.

The Solana network surged as the most used blockchain for stablecoin transfers since last year. According to data from analytics platform Artemis, stablecoin transfer volume on Solana reached $1.5 trillion over the past year, largely surpassing Ethereum’s volume of $885 billion over the same period.

PayPal launched its stablecoin in August 2023 in collaboration with Paxos Trust Company. The stablecoin was initially issued only on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token and is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term Treasurys, and cash equivalents.

Artificial Intelligence ETF

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Global X Artificial Intelligence is a new ETF listed on the ASX.

The index is designed to track the performance of companies listed or incorporated in developed markets
that are positioned to benefit from the development and utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their
products and services, as well as companies that produce hardware used in AI applied for the analysis of
Big Data. Indxx has identified the following categories as providing exposure to the underlying theme:
Category 1
Artificial Intelligence Developers – develop AI and use AI in their own products
Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service (“AIaaS”) – provide artificial intelligence capabilities to their
customers as a service.
Category 2
Artificial Intelligence Hardware – produce semiconductors, memory storage and other hardware that is
utilized for artificial intelligence applications. Quantum Computing – develop quantum computing technology.

The top 60 companies from Category 1 and the top 25 companies from Category 2 will form the final
index.

Small Companies Masters ETF

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VanEck Small Companies Masters invests in a diversified portfolio of ASX listed securities with the aim of providing investment returns (before Management fees) that closely track the performance of the MVIS Australia Small-Cap Dividend Payers Index.

The MVIS Australia Small-Cap Dividend Payers Index is a pure play index designed to capture the
performance of dividend paying Australian small cap equities, with real diversification across both
securities and sectors.

The Index includes the most liquid small cap ASX listed companies that did not omit their latest dividend payment and that generate at least 50% of their revenues in Australia. Individual Index components are determined using a stringent rules based methodology focusing on liquidity, with a minimum of 25 securities, each with a maximum weighting of 8%.