Airdrops have written the myth, can the market continue the story? An outlook on the prospects of Plasma

Author: Deng Tong, Jinse Finance

Original Title: After Creating the $0.1 Airdrop Legend, What Is the Future Outlook for Plasma?

On September 25, 2025, the mainnet Beta version of Plasma, a Layer 1 stablecoin payment project supported by Bitfinex, went live, integrating more than 100 DeFi protocols including Aave, Ethena, Fluid, and Euler.

Plasma set a legendary record where investors could obtain an airdrop worth $8,390 with just $0.1. What is the future outlook for Plasma?

2. The Development Prospects of Plasma

1. Plasma May Be a Long-Tail Approach to Accessing Tether

Some industry insiders believe that, relative to its adoption rate, Plasma’s valuation may still be somewhat high. Delphi Digital analyst @simononchain once pointed out that although Plasma has not yet seen real adoption, the market usually focuses on big opportunities like stablecoins. “The market may see Plasma as a long-tail way to access Tether, which is rapidly becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world.”

Plasma is a Layer 1 blockchain dedicated to stablecoins and supported by Tether. Tether’s sister company Bitfinex participated in Plasma’s investment, and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also personally participated in Plasma’s financing. Currently, Tether is still experiencing rapid growth. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino once pointed out: USDT is growing rapidly worldwide. In the first half of 2025, the number of on-chain USDT transfers increased by 120% compared to the entire year of 2024, with 66% coming from West Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Due to the special relationship between Plasma and Tether, investing in Plasma is equivalent to indirectly investing in Tether. As Tether continues to grow stronger, investors will also have great confidence in Plasma.

2. The Competitive Landscape Plasma Will Face

Plasma has an ambitious mission: to change the way global funds flow. As early as February this year, Plasma raised $24 million to develop a new blockchain for Tether’s USDT. However, Plasma is currently facing competition from multiple rivals.

First, Ethereum still holds the throne in stablecoin liquidity and other areas, while Tron and Solana are also strong competitors.

Second, stablecoin chains are on the rise, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce. On August 12, Circle announced the launch of Arc—an open Layer-1 blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin financial scenarios; on August 11, fintech giant Stripe partnered with crypto VC Paradigm to develop a high-performance, payment-focused Layer 1 blockchain called “Tempo”; there’s also Noble, a native asset issuance chain built on Cosmos SDK; and even Google recently announced Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL)—an L1 focused on providing digital payments and tokenization for financial institutions…

Therefore, Plasma’s competitors are not only established public chains in the crypto industry, but also new-generation stablecoin chains and giants from traditional industries.

3. The Future of Plasma

Now, Plasma has launched its mainnet and native XPL token, introducing zero-fee USDT transfers through a custom consensus called PlasmaBFT, as well as more than 100 DeFi integrations. Within 24 hours of launch, Plasma absorbed over $4 billion in crypto assets, ranking eighth in blockchain DeFi deposit value. This was mainly due to users locking assets in Plasma lending vaults and partner DeFi protocols, allowing them to earn the network’s native token XPL. This morning, Plasma announced that within two days, the stablecoin supply on the Plasma chain had exceeded $7 billion.

Due to its speed and zero-fee advantages, exchanges, financial companies, banks, and others can use Plasma as a settlement layer for large transfers. Banks or corporate consortia can also run private overlay layers on Plasma, settling large interbank transfers with Bitcoin-backed finality. For corporate treasuries, transferring $50 million between subsidiaries may take only a few seconds, instead of several days as with traditional SWIFT.

In addition to launching the mainnet to assist with settlements, Plasma will also introduce a new banking product—Plasma One.

On September 22, Plasma announced the launch of Plasma One—the first new bank for native stablecoins. The target customers for this release are users in emerging markets with strong demand for US dollar usage, offering stablecoin-supported bank cards, fee-free USDT transfers, and quick onboarding features.

Plasma One has the following features: Earn while you spend: pay directly from your stablecoin balance while earning over 10% returns; Real rewards: earn up to 4% cashback when spending with PlasmaOne’s physical or virtual card; Borderless coverage: use the card in over 150 countries and 150 million merchants; Zero-fee USDT transfers: instantly and freely send digital dollars to individuals and businesses via the app; Fast registration: register, complete the onboarding process, and get a virtual spending card within minutes (instead of days).

Plasma One will fully integrate the entire Plasma ecosystem into one application, such as integrating the DeFi ecosystem, exchange integration, and payment partners, providing pricing and liquidity, as well as a consistent user experience.

Summary

The popularity of the Plasma project was already evident in June this year: on June 9, Plasma’s public token sale completed the $500 million quota within minutes. More than 1,100 wallets participated for the first time, with an average deposit amount of about $35,000. On June 12, Plasma announced another $500 million deposit cap, raising the total cap to $1 billion…

Plasma CEO Paul Faecks once pointed out: “The US dollar is a product, and most people in the world desire to obtain it. Stablecoins provide a fundamental, permissionless way to hold and transfer dollars anywhere…”

Now, Plasma has shaken the industry with its XPL airdrop, and, leveraging its connection with Tether and its strong position as a reshaper of the stablecoin chain competitive landscape, has won the favor of many investors. No one can predict what kind of brilliance Plasma will achieve on the road to disrupting traditional financial payments.