@Plasma is a Layer-1 blockchain built specifically for stablecoins, addressing one of the most important gaps in the crypto ecosystem: efficient, scalable, and user-friendly stablecoin payments. Unlike general-purpose blockchains that treat stablecoins as just another asset, Plasma places them at the center of its design, optimizing the protocol for real-world financial use cases such as payments, remittances, treasury management, and onchain settlement. The network launches with approximately $2 billion in USD₮ liquidity, ensuring deep capital availability from day one.
At the protocol level, Plasma introduces stablecoin-native functionality rather than relying on external middleware or complex fee abstractions. One of its most notable features is zero-fee USD₮ transfers, enabled through a restricted and audited paymaster contract that sponsors gas costs for standard transfers. This allows users to send stablecoins without holding the native token, creating a seamless experience closer to traditional payment systems while preserving onchain security and transparency.
Plasma also supports custom gas tokens, allowing approved stablecoins and ecosystem tokens to be used for transaction fees instead of XPL. This design removes one of the biggest friction points in blockchain onboarding and enables applications to deliver stablecoin-first user experiences without compromising safety or decentralization. Gas abstraction is handled by protocol-maintained contracts, keeping execution predictable and production-ready.
Under the hood, Plasma is powered by PlasmaBFT, a high-performance consensus mechanism based on a pipelined implementation of Fast HotStuff. By parallelizing proposal, voting, and commitment phases, the network achieves high throughput with deterministic finality typically reached within seconds. This architecture is optimized for the consistent, high-volume transaction flows that stablecoin payments demand at global scale.
The execution layer is fully EVM compatible and built on Reth, a modular Ethereum execution client written in Rust. Developers can deploy standard Solidity smart contracts with no changes and continue using familiar tools such as MetaMask, Hardhat, and Foundry. This ensures a smooth developer experience while maintaining Ethereum-level compatibility and composability.
Plasma further extends its capabilities with a trust-minimized, non-custodial Bitcoin bridge that allows real BTC to enter the EVM environment securely. Once bridged, Bitcoin becomes programmable, enabling BTC-backed stablecoins, collateralized systems, and cross-asset financial applications without relying on centralized custodians. This design brings together stablecoins and Bitcoin liquidity within a single settlement layer.
Privacy is also a core focus. @Plasma is developing an opt-in confidential payment system for stablecoins that allows users to shield transaction amounts and recipient data while preserving composability and regulatory flexibility. Designed entirely in standard Solidity, this approach avoids custom virtual machines and integrates cleanly with existing wallets and applications.
The XPL token secures the network and aligns long-term incentives across validators, developers, and users. With a fixed initial supply of 10 billion tokens, a declining validator reward schedule, and an EIP-1559-style fee burn mechanism, XPL is structured to support sustainable network growth alongside increasing transaction demand.
@Plasma is not trying to be a general-purpose blockchain for every possible use case. Instead, it focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well: providing the foundational infrastructure for stablecoins to operate at global scale. As stablecoins continue to bridge traditional finance and blockchain technology, Plasma positions itself as the settlement layer built specifically for that future.
