I’ll put it the way I explain it when someone asks me “what’s the XPL roadmap?” — not hype, just the real moving parts.
XPL’s roadmap is basically three tracks running in parallel: when supply unlocks, when staking becomes real, and when the chain stops depending on “trusted” actors and opens up.
First, the timeline anchor: Plasma’s mainnet beta + XPL went live on September 25, 2025. From that day, the public-sale flow split in two. If someone bought outside the US, their tokens were effectively unlocked at launch. If they bought in the US, that chunk stays sealed for 12 months, and the big date to remember is July 28, 2026—that’s when the US public-sale unlock fully lands.
Second track: the “engine room.” XPL becomes a working asset when validators expand and delegation opens. Plasma’s plan is staged: start with a trusted validator set, then expand, then move toward permissionless participation. The important detail: inflation isn’t meant to run from day one. It turns on when external validators + stake delegation are live. Emissions are designed around ~5% annual inflation, drifting down over time toward ~3%, while base fees follow a burn-style model to help balance issuance as usage grows.
Third track: the long unlock slope. The big bucket is Ecosystem & Growth (40%)—some unlocks immediately for incentives, but the rest streams monthly over three years, and the team + investors also unlock after a 1-year cliff, then monthly, finishing around late 2028.
So for me, XPL’s roadmap isn’t one “event.” It’s a sequence of pressure points and maturity steps—unlock waves, staking activation, decentralization.
