Bitcoin BTC and ethereum have struggled to make ground over the last month as traders braced mercurial billionaire Elon Musk to lob a grenade into the crypto market.

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The bitcoin price, still down by more than 50% from its late 2021 all-time high of almost $70,000 per bitcoin, is heading into what could be its biggest-ever year in 2024 while ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin recently teased a new upgrade to the network.

Now, after payments giant PayPal announced it'd created its own stablecoin cryptocurrency, legendary bitcoin and crypto investor Charlie Shrem has predicted the move will "skyrocket" bitcoin and accelerate ethereum's timetable.

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"PayPal launching a stablecoin will skyrocket bitcoin to at least $250,000 faster than it was supposed to, and ethereum likely will 10x on a faster timetable," Shrem, who created one of the earliest bitcoin companies, BitInstant, in 2012, posted to X (Twitter). "Very exciting."

The bitcoin price jumping to $250,000 would give the combined bitcoin network a market capitalization of almost $5 trillion.

This week, PayPal announced the launch of its own tether and USDC USDC rival stablecoin PayPalUSD (PYUSD). The dollar-pegged stablecoin is "fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits" and can be bought or sold on PayPal’s app or website at $1.00 per PYUSD.

"The shift toward digital currencies requires a stable instrument that is both digitally native and easily connected to fiat currency like the U.S. dollar," Dan Schulman, PayPal president and chief executive, said in a press release. "Our commitment to responsible innovation and compliance, and our track record delivering new experiences to our customers, provides the foundation necessary to contribute to the growth of digital payments through PayPal USD."

The ethereum-based PYUSD will be issued by New York-based crypto financial services company Paxos Trust. Paxos issued the Binance-branded BUSD BUSD stablecoin that was regulated out of existence by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after being labeled an unregistered security. PYUSD will be available "in the coming weeks" to customers in the U.S. with PayPal Balance accounts and will come to the PayPal-owned Venmo app "soon."

In late 2020, PayPal's announcement that it would roll out support for bitcoin, ethereum and a handful of other cryptocurrencies kicked off the 2021 crypto market bull run that catapulted bitcoin to a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion.

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PayPay's stablecoin announcement has been broadly cheered by bitcoin, ethereum and crypto market watchers.

"Stablecoins are of particular importance for the cryptocurrency market as a whole, as they reflect the amount of money in the market," Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, said in emailed comments.

"If the number of stablecoins is decreasing, we may see a decline in the available money in circulation, which has a negative impact on, among other things, the potential for bitcoin to rise. A change in this trend could be a strong indicator for the start of a new bull market."