Next-Generation Stablecoin Infrastructure: Plasma Proposes Dedicated Blockchain Solutions

Stablecoins have become an important vehicle in the cryptocurrency field, playing a key role in payments, settlements, and financial services. However, the existing blockchain infrastructure has not been optimized for the characteristics of stablecoins and still faces issues such as high transaction costs, performance bottlenecks, and centralization risks.

To address these challenges, Plasma proposed an innovative solution: to build a high-performance Bitcoin sidechain specifically designed for stablecoins. This solution aims to be EVM-compatible while providing zero-fee transactions, enhanced security, and scalability.

This concept has attracted widespread attention in the market. In February 2025, Plasma announced the completion of a $24 million financing round, with investors including several well-known institutions and individual investors. In addition, some emerging platforms have also chosen Plasma as the vehicle for their initial coin offerings.

The Necessity of Stablecoin-Specific Blockchain

According to predictions from research institutions, the annual trading volume of stablecoins in 2024 is expected to reach $15.6 trillion, surpassing the transaction scale of mainstream payment networks. As a "killer application" in the crypto space, stablecoins play a core role in multiple scenarios, attracting numerous projects and enterprises to accelerate their layout.

The Plasma team believes that current mainstream public chains have shortcomings in supporting stablecoin applications. Ethereum's high gas fees make it perform poorly in payment scenarios; while some public chains with low fees and fast transactions have gained market share, their number of nodes is limited and overly centralized.

In response to these issues, Plasma has proposed a new type of blockchain specifically designed for stablecoins. Its plan is to create a sidechain on the Bitcoin blockchain while maintaining full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This design meets the fundamental needs of decentralized financial activities and leverages the security of Bitcoin to provide zero-fee stablecoin transactions, potentially unlocking the trillion-dollar stablecoin market.

Inheriting the security of the Bitcoin network, launching a zero-fee transfer mechanism

The Plasma team chose to build a Bitcoin sidechain because they recognized the unparalleled security and decentralization of the Bitcoin network, believing it provides an ideal foundation for global stablecoin settlement.

In terms of core consensus mechanisms, Plasma independently developed PlasmaBFT, which is evolved from Fast HotStuff, supporting thousands of transactions per second. PlasmaBFT is written in Rust and optimized for low end-to-end latency.

In addition, Plasma achieves trust-minimized security inheritance by anchoring the state root to the Bitcoin network. This design allows Plasma to reach a security level comparable to Bitcoin without relying on a single validating node or intermediary, thereby reducing the risk of single points of failure or attacks.

The deployment of the Plasma consensus mechanism will be carried out in three phases: starting with trusted validators, gradually expanding the validator set, and ultimately transitioning to a fully decentralized permissionless model.

To address the issue of high transaction fees, Plasma has introduced a "zero-fee" transfer mechanism for stablecoins. The network adopts a block architecture and is designed with two parallel processing layers: one layer is responsible for normal fee transactions, which are faster; the other layer specifically handles free transactions, which are slightly slower. Users can choose different transaction methods based on their needs. To ensure smooth channels, Plasma has also incorporated an ordering mechanism that includes rate limits, minimum balance requirements, and replacement strategies.

XPL Token Issuance and Lock-up Rules

XPL is the native coin of the Plasma network, used to maintain consensus and security and serve as fuel for the execution layer. XPL plays a core role in the system, ensuring the security of the PlasmaBFT consensus mechanism, supporting EVM execution based on Reth, and will also support a minimal trust Bitcoin bridge.

The XPL public sale will be conducted on the Plasma official website, and participants need to complete compliance processes such as identity verification and jurisdiction screening. Pre-storage will open on June 9, and the actual sale will begin a few weeks later. The number of units for each participant corresponds to a guaranteed allocation quota, and multiple stablecoins can be used to purchase XPL. This round of public fundraising plans to sell 10% of the total XPL amount, corresponding to a fully diluted valuation of 500 million dollars.

During the deposit phase, participants deposit stablecoins into the Plasma Vault on Ethereum, and the vault contract deploys the funds to liquidity protocols to generate returns. Participants accumulate "units" based on the duration of the deposit, which ultimately determines the guaranteed allocation of XPL. After the deposit period ends, the Vault enters a lock-up period of at least 40 days.

When the Plasma mainnet Beta goes live, participants will receive the allocated XPL tokens, and the funds during the deposit period will also be bridged to the Plasma network and can be withdrawn. Participants in certain regions may face additional locking period restrictions.

Plasma emphasizes that the structure of this issuance reflects the core values of its network: encouraging long-term participation, maintaining aligned interests, and enhancing transparency to ensure that early contributors can fairly share in the benefits brought by the network's growth.