TBW - Plasma: The First Stablecoin-Native Blockchain Betting Big on USDT

The stablecoin market continues to expand. With a capitalisation of almost $255 billion and payment volumes that now exceed those of Visa, this segment has established itself as a pillar of the crypto economy. It alone now accounts for 96% of daily trading volumes on platforms, or around $172 billion.

Tether still dominates the sector with a 61% market share ($155 billion capitalisation), followed by Circle's USDC (24%). Their main use remains payments: low costs, near-instant settlement, and growing adoption on the main blockchains.

Ethereum and Tron concentrate the majority of USDT supply, while Ethereum and Solana share USDC supply. Each blockchain has its own specific advantages: Ethereum has significant market depth, but is still expensive. Tron is more accessible, particularly for USDT transfers. Solana offers the best speed, at lower costs, but its market share remains modest ($11 billion in stablecoins, mainly in USDC).

It is in this context that a new player is emerging: Plasma.

This first-layer blockchain, backed by Bitfinex and partners close to Tether, intends to position itself as the preferred infrastructure for USDT transfers, with a clear promise: zero costs and fast execution.

In this analysis, we will inspect in detail the genesis of the project, the funding raised and how Plasma positions itself against other payment rails in the sector.

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Overview

Plasma is positioning itself as a new layer 1 specialising in stablecoin transactions, a market estimated to be worth $255 billion - including $155 billion for USDT alone. The protocol aims to capture a significant share of this business by offering an optimised infrastructure capable of processing stablecoin payments without transaction fees.

To achieve this, Plasma relies on several key technical building blocks. Firstly, gas fees can be settled not only with the native token (the future XPL), but also with assets such as USDT or BTC. This function is supported by an integrated automatic swap mechanism, which means that users do not have to manually convert their tokens to interact with the network.

The consensus is based on PlasmaBFT, a variant of the Fast HotStuff protocol, designed to guarantee rapid finality and high execution speeds. At the same time, the network plans to anchor transaction settlements on the Bitcoin blockchain, in order to benefit from its level of security.

On the execution side, Plasma relies on Reth, an Ethereum-compatible engine written in Rust, which promises performance and modularity. Eventually, the team plans to add confidential transactions to improve the protection of user data.

Plasma adopts a proof-of-stake model and intends to position itself between Ethereum and Tron: faster and cheaper than Ethereum, but also more decentralised than Tron, with a strong foothold in the stablecoin ecosystem thanks to the support of major players in the sector.

Massive funding, backed by key industry figures

Plasma raised a total of $24 million in its first two rounds of funding: a Seed round and a Series A round. These rounds were led by Bitfinex and Framework Ventures, two well-known players in the crypto ecosystem.

Bitfinex, operated by iFinex (also parent company of Tether), is one of the oldest exchange platforms in the sector. In recent years, it has specialised in seed investment. For its part, Framework Ventures is a Californian fund founded in 2019, active in several Web3 segments: data services, APIs, DePIN, derivatives and DEX.

Among its most profitable historical investments are Aave and Chainlink, with respective returns on investment of 155x and 125x since their ICO. Its portfolio now totals nearly $18 billion in market capitalisation.

Plasma also secured a strategic round with Founders Fund (Peter Thiel's fund) on 22 May 2025, for an undisclosed amount. The valuation retained at the time of this round is $500 million at fully diluted valuation.

On 9 June, Plasma organised an atypical ICO via the Sonar platform developed by Echo.

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The initial fundraising cap, set at $100 million, was quickly raised to $250 and then $500 million. This amount was reached in less than an hour, with 1,100 wallets participating. The average deposit was $454,000, while the median deposit was much smaller at $35,000.

Investors deposited stablecoins (USDC, USDT, USDS, DAI) for the right to access the future sale of the XPL native token.

The breakdown of the first 500 million deposited is as follows:

• USDC: $345 million (69%)
• USDT: $146.1 million (29.2%)
• USDS: 7.5 million (1.5%)
• DAI: 1.21 million (0.3%)

A second round of filings began on 12 June, attracting an additional 1,944 portfolios. The total raised doubled, reaching $1 billion, with an average deposit of $257,000 and a median deposit of $12,000.

At the end of this second phase, the breakdown of deposits has changed slightly:

• USDC: 589 million (58.9%)
• USDT: 394.87 million (39.5%)
• USDS: 16.66 million (1.7%)
• DAI: 3.39 million (0.4%)

Despite the involvement of Bitfinex and figures close to Tether, it is USDC holders who dominate deposits on Plasma. The share of USDC fell by ten points between the two phases, in favour of a rebalancing with USDT. USDS and DAI currently retain marginal shares.

A team drawn from tech, research and venture capital

Behind Plasma is a trio of profiles with complementary backgrounds: Paul Faecks (CEO), Hans-Walter Behrens (CTO) and Vincent Rong (Head of Ecosystem).

Paul Faecks, based in Berlin, is an active entrepreneur in the Web3 ecosystem. A graduate of Technische Universität München (TUM), he specialises in digital asset analysis and decentralised finance. He worked for Deribit Insights before co-founding Alloy, a technology company focused on crypto applications. He now runs Plasma with a product- and community-focused approach. He speaks on X under the pseudonym @pauliepunt.

The technology side is led by Hans-Walter Behrens, a researcher and engineer trained at Arizona State University. With a PhD in progress, his work focuses on resilient cooperative systems, privacy and distributed networks. Before joining Plasma, he was CTO and then CEO of Topl, a blockchain startup acquired in 2023. He now heads up Plasma's technical architecture, between academic research and production start-up.

Finally, Vincent Rong oversees the development of the ecosystem. Having worked in investment banking at Everbright Securities, he continued his career in equity analysis at Elevation Capital Management, before moving on to become an investor and venture partner at Karatage. He is now the interface between Plasma, strategic partners and developers. He is active on X under the name @Lucid.

A community in formation, driven by the announcement effect

Plasma now has an official account on X followed by just over 107,000 subscribers. The team regularly communicates on the progress of the project, partnerships and fundraising operations. The audience varies greatly depending on the publications, ranging from a few thousand views to almost a million for some content.

Engagement accelerated sharply when the strategic round led by Founders Fund was announced on 22 May. During the filing phases, almost every post exceeded 500 likes, reflecting a one-off spike in interest around the ICO. At the same time, a Discord server brings together just over 4,700 members, where discussions focus mainly on how the protocol works and the next steps in the launch.

Although the community ecosystem remains young, the early signals show a momentum driven by the project's financial news. It remains to be seen whether this traction will be sustained over time.

Technological choices: an architecture designed for speed, EVM compatibility and resilience

Plasma is based on a technological combination designed to meet the requirements of stablecoin transfers: speed, reliability, compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem and easy integration with Bitcoin.

The core of the protocol is built around three main components:

• PlasmaBFT, a consensus mechanism inspired by Fast HotStuff;
• an EVM-compatible runtime environment based on Reth, written in Rust;
• a native bridge to Bitcoin, with no centralised authority.

Optimised consensus for payments

PlasmaBFT is based on classic Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) principles with a proven formula (n ≥ 3f + 1). It introduces a pipelined structure and two-chain validation that allows blocks to be finalised quickly, particularly when the leader is acting honestly. This model has been designed to support thousands of transactions per second. Unlike other proof-of-stake blockchains, Plasma does not provide for punitive slashing in the event of malicious behaviour. It favours reputation mechanisms and an adjusted reward logic, closer to the expectations of traditional financial players.

The deployment of the consensus follows a gradual trajectory: a restricted group of trusted validators at launch, followed by expansion phases to test scalability, with the ultimate goal of complete decentralisation. The selection of validators is based on a cryptographically secure random draw, weighted by the stakes involved, to guarantee fairness and resistance to Sybil attacks.

An Ethereum-compatible execution

Plasma is fully compatible with the EVM, enabling existing smart contracts on Ethereum to be deployed without modification. This strategic choice is aimed at capturing the uses already established in the stablecoin ecosystem, most of which is built on Ethereum. The execution environment is based on Reth, a Rust implementation that combines performance and modularity. For developers, this guarantees continuity of use and smooth integration.

A native and trust-minimized Bitcoin bridge

Plasma also incorporates a native bridge to Bitcoin, managed by the same set of validators as the one that secures the chain. This approach aims to limit trust assumptions. The validators can run full Bitcoin nodes to independently monitor the state of the network and produce Merkle summaries of the UTXO set, which are then anchored in Plasma blocks.

The mechanism works in two stages: locking BTC on the Bitcoin side, then issuing a mirror token on Plasma; conversely, a burn operation on Plasma enables re-issuance on Bitcoin via a consensus-validated Schnorr transaction. At regular intervals, Plasma also anchors states on the Bitcoin blockchain to enhance auditability.

A system still in the preliminary phase

Plasma has not yet launched its Mainnet Beta and has not, to date, reported any security flaws. The architecture in place aims to reconcile security, performance and compatibility with traditional financial infrastructures, while relying on the proven standards of the crypto ecosystem.

Token, treasury and governance: foundations laid, persistent unknowns

Plasma's native token, dubbed XPL, has not yet been released. At this stage, neither the whitepaper nor details of the full breakdown of the offering have been published.

What we do know: a public sale is planned, with 10% of the total offering, valued at $500 million at fully diluted valuation (FDV), to be put on the market. This represents a targeted raise of $50 million. During the deposit campaigns, 3,084 portfolios participated.

Deposit operations have generated 88.88 ETH in transaction fees to date (or approximately $230,000 in two days). The current rate of collection, estimated at $115,000 per day, gives an annualised projection of $41.975 million. Once the deposits are closed, the safe is locked for a minimum of 40 days from the date of the public sale. No further withdrawals or deposits are possible. All stablecoins deposited will then be converted to USDT, in preparation for migration to Plasma's Mainnet Beta.

The total locked value (TVL) in Plasma's vaults reaches $1 billion, split into two waves of deposits. In the absence of a full financial report, certain ratios can already be calculated from the revenues generated. Taking these revenues as representative of sales, the price/sales ratio (P/S) is 23.82 on the basis of tokens in circulation, and 238.2 on a fully diluted basis. The price-to-book (P/B) ratio, meanwhile, stands at 0.5 - with the value of cash being twice the fully diluted capitalisation.

XPL will play a role in the governance of the protocol, with staking functions allowing holders to vote on proposals. The precise arrangements will be revealed when the whitepaper is published. At this stage, the governance structure has yet to be specified.

A business model still under construction

The Plasma Mainnet has not yet been launched, but the protocol has already generated $230,000 in fees from the first two waves of deposits. This revenue comes exclusively from stablecoin contribution transactions, carried out ahead of the sale of the XPL token.

In addition to this initial source of revenue, Plasma has raised $24 million from investors and collected $1 billion in stablecoins from its community. This cash, which has been tied up for a minimum of 40 days, could subsequently be used in return-generating protocols such as Aave, Maker, Ethena and Curve. The protocol's governance - exercised by XPL holders - will be able to vote on the strategy for deploying these funds. Revenues generated in this way could feed the rewards distributed to stakers, or be considered a form of "blockchain income".

The Plasma business model is also based on a promise of USDT transfers free of charge. This policy will only apply to simple, wallet-to-wallet transactions. More complex interactions, particularly those involving smart contracts, will remain subject to fees, payable in tokens selected by the user (e.g. USDT or BTC).

Plasma is thus banking on a dual lever: the attractiveness of a free infrastructure for stablecoin transfers, and the value of its cash within the DeFi ecosystem.

Ecosystem and partnerships

Plasma is relying on a series of partnerships to structure its ecosystem around stablecoins and decentralised finance. The protocol is working directly with Tether and Bitfinex, two central players in the market, to ensure the seamless integration of USDT within its blockchain.

Thanks to its full compatibility with EVM, Plasma has also forged agreements with several major DeFi protocols on Ethereum, including Aave, Maker, Curve and Ethena. These partnerships will eventually enable Plasma's cash - notably stablecoin deposits - to be used to generate returns via strategies deployed directly on these platforms.

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Plasma is also looking to extend its adoption beyond traditional markets. A partnership has been announced with Yellow Card, an exchange platform active on the African continent, to facilitate access to stablecoins and boost their local use.

Other more targeted collaborations have been revealed, including with Veda, an on-chain performance optimisation tool for users, and Uranium Digital, a protocol specialising in the tokenisation of commodities, and uranium in particular.

These initial agreements outline the contours of a network that is still young, but already structured around concrete challenges: payment infrastructure, cash allocation, and integration with emerging markets.

An architecture exposed to several structural and regulatory risks

Like any blockchain protocol, Plasma is not immune to the classic risks associated with smart contract flaws. But other, more specific vulnerabilities deserve attention, particularly in relation to its business model and its still centralised governance.

One of the most sensitive points concerns the distribution of the XPL token at the end of deposit campaigns. Initial on-chain analyses reveal a high degree of concentration: the 25 largest portfolios hold more than 85% of the allocated supply, and the top 10 more than 40%. This situation reinforces the weight of the "whales" in future governance and could discourage wider participation in the ecosystem.

The deposit fees - although presented as one-off - have also created a barrier to entry. On average, each wallet paid $75 to participate, with an extreme peak of almost $100,000 for a single user, a sign of high network congestion during critical phases and pressure on small holders.

Plasma is banking on USDT transfers free of charge. While this choice makes the protocol more attractive, it also opens the door to the risk of saturation. In the absence of an economic barrier, spam campaigns could be carried out on a large scale, resulting in an overload of the validator nodes, an inflation of storage requirements and a blockage of the network's communication channels. The protocol will have to demonstrate that it has effective technical safeguards to prevent this type of exploitation.

On the legal front, the context is becoming more tense. In the United States, the GENIUS Act is making rapid progress. This bill, backed by a bipartisan majority (66 votes to 32 in the Senate), aims to introduce federal supervision of stablecoin issuers. A framework that could affect Plasma indirectly, due to its close links with Tether - already targeted by several regulators in the past.

In the absence of a clear framework on protocol compliance, and in a climate of regulatory tightening, Plasma could be forced to adapt its architecture or governance model to remain viable on North American markets.

Competition

Plasma is attacking a segment already well occupied by the most established layer 1 blockchains. Ethereum, Tron and Solana serve as both foundations for decentralised applications and major channels for stablecoin transfers. Together, Ethereum and Tron concentrate around 80% of the total stablecoin supply, or $204.84 billion.

Ethereum remains the leading infrastructure in absolute value with $125 billion in stablecoins (including $63 billion in USDT and $37.8 billion in USDC). Tron, meanwhile, hosts almost 100% of its stablecoin volume in USDT, or $78.3 billion out of a total of $79 billion.

Deposits made on Plasma, mainly in USDC, make the comparison with Solana relevant. On Solana, USDC accounts for $8 billion out of a total of $11 billion in stablecoins. It is now the leading blockchain for USDC after Ethereum.

Plasma remains a pre-launch project for the time being: the Mainnet Beta is not yet active and TVL on the channel itself is therefore nil. Technically, the chain promises higher transaction speeds than Ethereum, but lower than Tron and Solana.

In terms of valuation, comparisons should be taken with caution. Based on a price/sales (P/S) ratio, Plasma appears slightly cheaper than Solana, but around six times cheaper than Ethereum. On the other hand, Plasma is valued four times more than Tron - its main competitor in the USDT infrastructure niche. These figures are based on theoretical projections, while the blockchain is not yet in operation.

The viability of Plasma will depend on its ability to differentiate itself on speed, transfer cost and governance, while proving that its stablecoin-first positioning can prevail against infrastructures that are already massively used.

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Roadmap

Plasma's development is structured around four main phases, aimed at gradually rolling out its stablecoin-first infrastructure.

Phase 1: launch of the Mainnet Beta. This first stage will see the activation of the fundamental components of the protocol, including the PlasmaBFT consensus, designed to offer high throughput and low latency, and an EVM-compatible execution environment, enabling existing smart contracts to be deployed without modification. The first rumoured launch date spoke of the end of Q2 2025.

Phase 2: Bitcoin integration. Plasma will deploy a native bridge to anchor blockchain state changes on the Bitcoin network. The aim is to ensure enhanced interoperability, while facilitating access to BTC liquidity via a secure settlement mechanism.

Phase 3: implementation of the protocol's key features, including fee-free USDT transfers, payment of gas fees in personalised tokens, and the introduction of confidential transactions designed to enhance user privacy.

Phase 4: delivery of development and integration tools. This final phase involves the provision of APIs, SDKs and management interfaces for developers and financial institutions, to facilitate the integration of Plasma into stablecoin wallets and buy/sell services.

The Big Whale's opinion

Since their rise, stablecoins have established themselves on the main generalist blockchains: Ethereum, Tron and Solana. These networks have a proven infrastructure, a loyal user base and, above all, a proven product-market fit. This begs the question: is the launch of a blockchain dedicated to stablecoin transfers, mainly in USDT, really necessary?

A large part of the stablecoin offering is already deployed on the EVM ecosystem or is migrating to Solana, which is gaining momentum. This complicates Plasma's adoption trajectory, especially as other layers are actively working to improve their processing capacity and secure their place in this highly competitive market.

At this stage, several grey areas remain: the XPL token has not yet been launched, the Mainnet Beta is expected, and no whitepaper has been published. What we do know is that the deposit campaign was heavily dominated by highly capitalised portfolios. The 10% of the offer soon to be available on the market could mainly serve as an exit for the largest participants, with a non-negligible risk for retail investors, penalised by both high transaction fees and a reduced allocation.

Financially, the valuation retained ($500 million in FDV for $24 million raised) remains reasonable when considering the price-to-book ratio, but it still reflects a valuation more than 20 times higher than the amounts actually injected.

Plasma comes at a strategic time, when the stablecoin theme is capturing a significant amount of attention in the crypto industry. The deal seems calibrated to capitalise on this momentum. But the real question remains: does the protocol meet a real need, or are we witnessing a skilfully orchestrated value extraction operation?

The answer will come after the launch of the token and the network. What is certain is that competition is already in place and that users who participated in the ICO, particularly small holders, could find themselves at a disadvantage.

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