USDC and PYUSD are both regulated USD stablecoins. For x402-style agent payments, USDC has a meaningful integration lead — Coinbase's CDP facilitator settles USDC by default, and most x402 SDKs assume USDC.
Default to USDC for x402 agent payments today. Add PYUSD only if your agent population is PayPal-anchored.
x402 servers have a default asset. Buyers without overriding configuration will pay in that default. USDC is the default in every reference implementation today.