Picking morning dew, using words as evidence, Azu is here. To be honest, after reviewing Plasma's data recently, there is a feeling of 'the roller coaster just finished a round, the lights are on, please everyone calmly get off the ride.' At the beginning of October, the TVL once surged to over 6 billion US dollars, which was described as 'epic capital-raising speed' by several data websites. As a result, in less than a month, it fell back to around 2.8 billion, with a weekly decline of nearly sixty percent. It is indeed thrilling to watch. But the question is, does this kind of fluctuation indicate that Plasma is just a short-term speculation, or is it really laying a solid foundation? If you only look at the K-line, it's easy to be led by emotions, so this time I want to broaden my perspective and analyze this 'stablecoin chain' from both the bubble and the foundation.
First, clarify the underlying settings. Plasma is essentially a high-performance Layer 1 tailored for stablecoins: USDT is a native first-class citizen, with zero-fee transfers and full EVM compatibility, using PlasmaBFT for its underlying consensus, aiming to handle high-frequency small payment traffic. When the mainnet launched at the end of September, there was already over 2 billion USD in stablecoin liquidity on-chain, integrating over a hundred DeFi protocols including Aave, Euler, Ethena, and Fluid, directly throwing itself into the 'stablecoin settlement infrastructure' track rather than competing TPS with a bunch of general-purpose public chains.
What truly ignited the emotions was that period of nearly distorted 'capital frenzy.' From the mainnet launch to early October, according to various data sources, Plasma's TVL quickly broke through 5 billion USD, peaking at 6 billion or even higher at times, while the on-chain stablecoin reserves once reached the 5 billion USD level. There is, of course, genuine demand behind this—everyone needs a cheaper and faster stablecoin settlement layer—but it also mixed in a large amount of short-term inflows from 'airdrop hunters + high APY farmers + meme hot money,' a fact that both exchange research and on-chain data analysis later acknowledged.
Then there is the scene you see now: as yields decrease and early incentives cool down, coupled with an overall market correction, Phemex's statistics show Plasma's TVL dropped from a high of 6.358 billion USD on October 9 to 2.809 billion USD on November 11, with the market cap of stablecoins shrinking by nearly half within a week, appearing like 'hot money retreating.' If you only look at this set of numbers, it's easy to conclude that 'the story is over,' but what I care more about is: after the bubble has been squeezed out, what is left on-chain, and what has become clearer.
A signal that many people overlook is the structural change in DeFi lending. The latest quarterly reports from Galaxy and DL News mentioned that, since the beginning of the year, the overall scale of DeFi lending has rebounded by 55%, with Plasma being the most prominent new chain of the season: it squeezed into the top ten of DeFi deposit rankings in a short time, and it wasn't just the yield farmers but a significant number of users treating stablecoins as 'new dollars,' migrating their assets to this chain. Plasma's CEO stated directly in an interview that they are targeting markets with unstable local currencies and high inflation, using a simple and direct digital dollar experience to rescue these people from local currency risks, which is completely different from the logic of merely creating a 'high-leverage casino on-chain.'
New actions in compliance and risk control also only slowly emerged after the TVL rollercoaster. At the end of September, the long-established on-chain compliance player Elliptic announced a deep cooperation with Plasma, directly embedding its on-chain analysis and sanction screening tools into the Plasma infrastructure, providing AML and address risk profiling for large-scale stablecoin settlements at the protocol level. The announcement also mentioned a number: Plasma had already carried over 2 billion USD in stablecoin TVL during its mainnet beta phase, ranking in the top eight globally among stablecoin chains, and the entire stablecoin market is expected to reach a scale of 20 trillion USD by 2028. What does this mean? It means that if you truly want to run wages, remittances, and B2B accounts on a chain long-term, in addition to high TPS and low fees, there must also be a compliant and auditable underlying structure, and Plasma is positioning itself as a path 'that can be clearly explained to regulators and institutional risk control teams.'
From the perspective of product landing, Plasma One is the most worthy part to highlight in this dynamic. The official defined it as 'the stablecoin-native neobank' in a lengthy article. For users, you only need to remember a few things: you can save, spend, earn, and exchange stablecoins with one app; the on-chain yield target is over 10% annualized; card spending can earn up to 4% XPL cashback; the card can be used in over 150 countries and over a hundred million merchants; transferring USD₮ to others within the app is fee-free and arrives in seconds. Personally, I value its security and custody design more: Plasma One defaults to self-custody, eliminating the need to remember seed phrases, instead using hardware-custodied keys, fingerprint/face login, and multi-layer encryption to ensure that only you can access this money, which is more persuasive for many first-time on-chain users than hearing a bunch of 'decentralized philosophy.'
Looking further down the infrastructure, Plasma does not rely solely on one analysis company but continues to refine the 'money routing.' It has officially joined the Chainlink SCALE program, incorporating Chainlink as its official oracle to obtain low-latency price data and cross-chain interoperability capabilities, facilitating developers in clearing, collateral ratio management, and cross-chain exchange logic. Coupled with the previously mentioned compliance layer from Elliptic, you will find that this chain is building a complete set of 'funds in and out + risk control + data feeding' trifecta, which is decisive for institutions looking to run large transactions, enterprise settlements, or even RWA on Plasma.
Of course, the TVL rollercoaster has also taught everyone a lesson: relying solely on high APY and expectation-driven capital attraction cannot withstand a round of market panic. Early media statistics showed that Plasma surged from 2 billion locked assets to 6 billion and even 14 billion USD within a few days, with a large portion being short-term arbitrage funds rotating between different protocols; DeFiLlama and subsequent analyses also provided a relatively calm reminder—high TVL does not equal high-quality usage, especially when memecoin craziness and airdrop games are overlapping. For ordinary users, seeing TVL retreat may not necessarily be a bad thing; it removes the excessively stacked leverage and bubbles, making it easier for you to see which protocols and scenarios can still stand after the tide recedes.
From my perspective as someone who has long been 'watching the excitement and then joining the workforce,' if you want to judge whether Plasma is still appealing, I would suggest you temporarily set aside the price and short-term curves and look at three more critical things. First, see if stablecoins are still flowing in: even if TVL has retraced from its peak, whether the absolute size of on-chain USD₮ and other stablecoins, the number of active addresses, and daily transaction volumes have stabilized, indicating whether this is still the 'main highway for stablecoins.' Second, observe whether real scenarios are occurring, from salary payments and cross-border remittances to small-scale collections, and projects like Coala Pay that bring aid funds and grants on-chain; if these things really start to run on a large scale on Plasma, the fluctuations in TVL are just noise. (Plasma) Third, see if compliance and infrastructure are still increasing: partners of the level of Elliptic and Chainlink will not integrate for a temporary spike in TVL; they care more about whether this chain will still provide a backbone for the global stablecoin system in five or ten years.
As for us individual users, should we 'all in Plasma' right now? My attitude has always been conservative but not exclusionary. You can start with a small portion of stablecoins and personally walk through a complete closed loop: transfer funds across from exchanges or bridges that support Plasma and experience what zero-fee transfers feel like; select one or two lending or payment protocols you understand and whose risk exposure you can accept for a small trial; if Plasma One opens up in your region in the future, use a genuine everyday expense, like a meal or an internet bill, to feel the sense of disconnection of 'storing stablecoins, using a card, and running on a chain' behind it. A round of TVL rollercoaster may scare off a batch of people who only look at the numbers, but for those who are seriously focused on stablecoin infrastructure, what truly deserves questioning is: five years from now, will most of the digital dollars silently run from these new tracks that seem 'very volatile' now, and will Plasma be the thickest one among them?
