HostPYUSD vs WSTETH — price, size and safety, side by side
PYUSD (Ethereum) vs WSTETH (Ethereum) — every figure is the freshest dated measurement we hold for that token, never a live-feed guess. Prices stamped 2026-10-17 / 2026-10-17.
PYUSD vs WSTETH — normalized performance, 2026-09-08 to 2026-10-17T03:15:24
| PYUSD | WSTETH | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.9987 | $3.02K |
| Market cap | $2.87B | $11.49B |
| 24h volume | $22.51M DEX | $11.82M DEX |
| Liquidity | $61.19M | $48.32M |
| FDV | $1.76B | $11.44B |
| Holders | 111,057 | 39,244 |
| Age (days) | 268 | 386 |
| Safety grade | B | B |
Where they differ
- WSTETH measures ~4.0× the market cap of PYUSD
- PYUSD measures ~1.9× the 24h volume of WSTETH
- PYUSD measures ~2.8× the holder count of WSTETH
What the data says
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.
WSTETH
wstETH is stETH made legible to DeFi — the same claim on Lido-staked Ether, wrapped so the balance stops moving: where stETH re-bases your token count upward each day, wstETH holds a fixed count and lets the exchange rate against stETH do the appreciating. That is the shape lending markets, bridges and LPs need, which is why the contract at 0x7f39c581f595b53c5cb19bd0b3f8da6c935e2ca0 became the canonical collateral form — our October 9, 2026 snapshot reads $48.3 million of tracked pool liquidity on it.
The verdict therefore inherits stETH's, plus one wrapper-layer note. You hold a claim on staked ETH via Lido — subject to its validator set, Ethereum's exit queue, and stETH's own depeg memory (June 2022, when it traded visibly under par) — and the price shown for wstETH is stETH's price times a steadily growing conversion rate, so it will always quote above ETH while tracking correctly. Nothing about that is a defect; it is the mechanic to understand before reading the quote as a premium.
FAQ
Which is bigger, PYUSD or WSTETH?
By tracked market cap: PYUSD (Ethereum) measures $2.87B and WSTETH (Ethereum) measures $11.49B — dated snapshots, not a live feed.
Which is safer, PYUSD or WSTETH?
On the contract checks we publish: PYUSD (Ethereum) grades B and WSTETH (Ethereum) grades B. A grade is a structural check on the contract, not a promise about the asset.
How have PYUSD and WSTETH performed over the shared window?
Between 2026-09-08 and 2026-10-17T03:15:24, the measured snapshots show PYUSD at −0.13% and WSTETH at −1.78%.
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→2026-10-17T03:15:24; 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.