HostSTETH vs PYUSD — price, size and safety, side by side
STETH (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 / 2026-10-17.
STETH vs PYUSD — normalized performance, 2026-09-08 to 2026-10-16T21:15:32
| STETH | PYUSD | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.46K | $0.9987 |
| Market cap | $24.20B | $2.87B |
| 24h volume | $6.05M DEX | $22.51M DEX |
| Liquidity | $74.96M | $61.19M |
| FDV | $24.16B | $1.76B |
| Holders | — | 111,057 |
| Age (days) | 1,549 | 268 |
| Safety grade | B | B |
Where they differ
- STETH measures ~8.4× the market cap of PYUSD
- PYUSD measures ~3.7× the 24h volume of STETH
What the data says
STETH
stETH is the receipt that made Ethereum staking liquid — deposit ETH with Lido, receive stETH, and the balance re-bases upward daily as staking rewards accrue. The contract at 0xae7ab96520de3a18e5e111b5eaab095312d7fe84 is the canonical deployment; our October 9, 2026 snapshot reads $75.0 million of tracked pool liquidity, against only about $1.5 million of recorded daily volume in this pair set. That thin on-chain turnover is the honest kind: stETH's real exit is the redemption path through Lido itself plus deep exchange books, not the DEX pools our sampler measures.
The risk shape is the one every liquid-staking token carries: stETH is a claim on staked ETH, not ETH — it has traded visibly under par before (June 2022, when withdrawal uncertainty met a leverage unwind), and its value rests on Lido's validator set, Ethereum's exit queue, and the redemption machinery that ultimately anchors it. A rebase token also confuses some wallets, DeFi pools and tax tools — the count in your balance literally changes daily, which is exactly the friction its wrapped sibling wstETH exists to remove.
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, STETH or PYUSD?
By tracked market cap: STETH (Ethereum) measures $24.20B and PYUSD (Ethereum) measures $2.87B — dated snapshots, not a live feed.
Which is safer, STETH or PYUSD?
On the contract checks we publish: STETH (Ethereum) grades B and PYUSD (Ethereum) grades B. A grade is a structural check on the contract, not a promise about the asset.
How have STETH and PYUSD performed over the shared window?
Between 2026-09-08 and 2026-10-16T21:15:32, the measured snapshots show STETH at −0.66% and PYUSD at +0.10%.
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→2026-10-16T21:15:32; 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.