The cryptocurrency market is witnessing a noteworthy phenomenon as Plasma, a stablecoin network backed by Bitcoin, has attracted $500 million in deposits in just minutes for its upcoming token sale. Even more astonishing, a trader spent as much as $100,000 in Ethereum gas fees to ensure their $10 million deposit in USDC was successfully executed.
The traders' enthusiasm for this public sale has led many to believe that the "frenzy" #ICO (Initial Coin Offering) from 2017 is making a comeback. ICOs were the hot trend of 2017 but gradually faded due to a slew of project failures and increasing regulatory scrutiny.
According to Plasma's documentation, the project is described as a Bitcoin sidechain that will use the Bitcoin network as a payment layer, aiming to meet the "unique needs of stablecoins." The public sale will auction off 10% of the total supply of XPL tokens through deposits into an Ethereum vault, using the newly launched Sonar token sale platform.
Despite attracting $500 million in deposits, a member of the Plasma team clarified on X that only $50 million worth of XPL tokens will actually be sold. By keeping funds in the deposit vault, users have the option to purchase a portion of the tokens in the upcoming sale, but are not obligated to do so – and they can withdraw their funds at any time. They will also earn yields from the tokens deposited while waiting.
Stablecoins have recently become the focus of the crypto market. These tokens, often pegged and backed by the USD or other traditional assets, are the backbone of the cryptocurrency industry, allowing traders to easily enter and exit positions. Stablecoins do not provide the potential for enormous profits like other cryptocurrencies, but they are an essential part of the crypto market.
In the United States, the Senate is working to pass a bill to establish a legal framework for stablecoin issuance, known as the #GENIUS Act. Meanwhile, Circle, the issuer of USDC (the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization), began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last Thursday with great success. The price of CRCL surged to a new high on Monday, increasing more than four times its initial offering price.
The wave of excitement surrounding stablecoins may explain why Plasma's pre-sale deposit vault filled up so quickly, as this is a project building a dedicated blockchain for stablecoins. One trader was so eager to participate that they paid 39.15 $ETH (over $100,000) to ensure their $10 million deposit in USDC was executed before the vault filled. This $100,000 fee is a priority fee, an optional feature that allows users to pay a higher fee to incentivize validators to process their transactions faster. This is particularly effective when the network is congested, as may have been the case this time with a large number of people trying to participate in the public sale at once.
As traders anticipate that others might raise their priority fees, a gas fee war could break out, resulting in huge bills not seen during normal trading. This behavior emerged during the ICO boom of 2017 and the NFT boom of 2021-2022. More recently, meme coin traders have also employed similar strategies to "snipe" high-demand tokens.
However, in the case of Plasma, the trader may have "played it big" with their $100,000 priority fee. Among the top five depositors, according to Etherscan, the highest fee paid was 4.49 ETH (more than $11,500).
"Plasma filling the immediate cap today is a massive signal indicating a meta shift," anonymous trader IcoBeast wrote on X. "ICOs are officially back, and Sonar is likely the most impactful crypto-native release of 2025 for the direction of crypto."
ICOs exploded in 2017 with countless projects raising funds by selling crypto tokens, including prominent projects like Filecoin and Tezos. However, within a year, Bitcoin.com found that 46% of the projects failed before or after raising funds.
Victor Teixeira, a fund director at investment firm Contango Digital Assets, believes that the frenzy experienced during the ICO boom of 2017 is still here – it just appears in the form of meme coins. He told #Decrypt : "The meme coin market we've experienced over the past year is a combination of the hype and the acceptance of individual users that we saw during the ICO boom of 2017."
"Individual users still want to bet on X1000 opportunities, and if you can capture that demand and attach it to a real product, you will have a much stronger narrative, with genuine potential for high profits," he added. "In the last cycle, we just didn't have a truly compelling project that could capture that imagination and excitement as well as meme coins have done."
However, not everyone is pleased with Plasma's ICO, as the top 10 participants accounted for 40% of the available deposit supply – a sign that crypto "whales" dominated the sale. A total of 1,108 wallets were able to participate in the deposit campaign – meaning each wallet contributed an average of over $450,000. Nevertheless, according to Etherscan, 141 traders contributed less than $1,000 each.
There is currently no specific date for the actual token sale, although as traders have suggested, the impact of the surge in demand on Monday could ripple throughout the market if other projects see untapped demand for a new wave of ICOs.