Original article: The Rollup

Compiled and edited by Yuliya, PANews

As stablecoins reach trillions of dollars, a new generation of infrastructure projects are actively developing and striving for global influence. Plasma is a highly anticipated example, with a vision not only to build a stablecoin chain but also to create a truly scalable and community-driven financial network. This episode of The Rollup features Plasma CEO Paul Faecks, who will share his thoughts and practices on Plasma's mainnet launch, community incentives, yield design, competitive landscape, and future product development. PANews has compiled and edited this conversation.

Mainnet launch and team challenges

Host: Paul, it's great to have you here. The past few days must have been incredibly stressful for you and the team. Can you share some thoughts on that experience?

Paul Faecks: This entire week has been incredibly tight. After all, launching a new chain involves so many external factors, and many aspects are beyond our control. But overall, it's been going smoothly so far. While the team is exhausted, it's gratifying to see the results. Of course, the real challenges lie ahead. We just launched the Plasma One product. The chain, DeFi ecosystem, and trading module are just the foundation, and there's still a lot of work to do over the next few years.

Host: You're only 26 years old, and you're already leading such a large-scale project. That's truly remarkable. Could you share your thoughts on your future vision?

Paul Faecks: Our direction is clear: Plasma isn't just about launching a new chain, but about gradually building a complete stablecoin ecosystem. The past few weeks are just the beginning; the real construction has just begun.

Community Incentives and Token Distribution

Host: Before launching the chain, you designed a very unique incentive structure, such as the highly publicized "deposit $1 on-chain and receive $10,000 worth of XPL." This model has helped Plasma avoid many controversies. Why did you choose this approach?

Paul Faecks: Our principles have always been transparency and openness. Whether it's the public offering or the token distribution, we want everyone to have the opportunity to participate. Stablecoin chains rely on community enthusiasm and broad grassroots participation. Only when the community truly feels the value can the ecosystem be healthy. The stablecoin collective, led by Nathan (Plasma Head of Growth), has played a key role in this regard, ensuring that the distribution method is both fair and encouraging user participation. This design is essentially intended to allow more people to experience the unique community atmosphere of Plasma.

Moderator: The market generally considers this to be one of the best launch cases of the year, and even this cycle. Many people, when claiming their rewards, felt that the team had strategically considered how to balance large and small investors, giving more people a sense of belonging.

Benefit Design and Sustainability

Host: Plasma is already seeing impressive returns, such as high yields on Ethena USD, circular arbitrage, and XPL incentives. Many are concerned about the sustainability of these returns. How do you avoid falling into a short-term "farm-and-sell" cycle?

Paul Faecks: This is a key question. We are very clear that relying solely on liquidity mining is unsustainable. Stablecoin networks must rely on widespread distribution and real demand. Our strategy is:

• Pursue real, organic user needs rather than pure incentive mining.

• Achieving mass distribution is key for us. For example, before launch, we expanded our partnership with Binance Earn, an exchange with 280 million users. This allowed a massive number of users to access Plasma products directly within the exchange, a significant breakthrough.

In the long run, for Plasma to truly succeed, it must reach large-scale adoption, transcending niche crypto communities and not relying solely on "crypto-native speculative users." We have always emphasized the importance of avoiding simple incentive loops and instead driving organic demand.

Host: Many projects launch first and then use tokens to incentivize the ecosystem, but you successfully attracted a large amount of liquidity before the token was launched. What is your core advantage?

Paul Faecks: I firmly believe that we have the most incredible team in the crypto world. Having a group of extremely sharp people with a long-term vision who truly want to create value is the strongest moat for any company.

Competitive landscape in the stablecoin field

Moderator: Circle's CEO believes the stablecoin market is about "jointly expanding the pie." When you think about the "stablecoin chain war" with giants like Stripe and Circle, how do you view Plasma's positioning and advantages?

Paul Faecks: I think stablecoins are at a huge inflection point. The market is currently around $260-270 billion, but it's definitely going to be in the trillions. Most of the growth hasn't happened yet. As a result, the way we think about competition has changed. When we first started, people were asking, "Why does a stablecoin need a blockchain?" Now, our competitors are giants like Stripe.

I believe we're pursuing different goals than our competitors. The scale of this war will be enormous. I don't believe Ethereum or Tron have yet won the scaling war, because what we mean by "scale" today will mean something completely different in three to five years. We'll see purpose-built chains with hundreds of billions of dollars in stablecoins processing trillions of transactions per day. That's the future we're fighting for.

We try not to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of, "What is Tempo doing? What is Codex doing?" I have a deep respect for those teams, and I think they're incredibly sharp, and in some ways they're pursuing different things.

The impact of stablecoins reaching trillions of dollars

Moderator: Another factor contributing to this step-change in competitive power is the growing acceptance of the concept of "trillions." This is partly related to the US government's need to finance its debt and its use of stablecoin companies as a conduit for issuance. It seems to be a consensus that stablecoins will reach trillions in circulation. More generally, I'd like to ask: what are the ripple effects of an ecosystem with trillions of stablecoins?

Paul Faecks: This is a rather complex question because it involves so many layers of change. I firmly believe that the world you describe will eventually become a reality, and we are focused on that. But the path to get there will be complex.

In the United States, in particular, people have recognized the importance of stablecoins as a national strategy. Scott Besson has argued that stablecoins are a key strategic component of global dollar monetary policy, as they require price-insensitive buyers of your Treasury bonds. Stablecoins do solve numerous problems in many areas and unlock enormous potential.

Host: As these things become more and more integrated, how will this affect the on-chain landscape?

Paul Faecks: I think the line between on-chain and off-chain finance will become increasingly blurred, and we are witnessing this happening. There are two memes that have lasted for many years that have only recently become a reality: one is "institutions are coming", and the other is the hybrid of "CeFi on the front end and DeFi on the back end".

You'll see more and more centralized financial products powered by on-chain processes, like those already launched by Coinbase and Binance. This pure on-chain approach, combined with "traditional finance + on-chain," is where the potential truly unleashed, and it's what Plasma is focused on.

Plasma One Applications and XPL Token Value

Host: You launched the Plasma One application, a neobank (a neobank can provide financial services to global users, especially those in underserved areas, through stablecoins, cross-border payments, etc.). What is its vision?

Paul Faecks: Stablecoins are the perfect technological foundation for building consumer-facing financial products. Plasma One has two goals:

• Providing a superior user experience: This is particularly true for users in countries with underdeveloped banking systems (such as Argentina and Turkey), providing a convenient channel to access US dollars and modern financial instruments. We can build a financial experience based on stablecoins that is far superior to traditional banking.

• As a "distribution wedge": It is a concrete product that allows ordinary people to actually use the Plasma chain. Through it, we can reach a wide range of end users and thus build a strong network effect, which is exactly what Tron has excelled at.

Host: So, how will the XPL token capture the value of the network?

Paul Faecks: We are very clear that XPL must play a central role in the Plasma economy. We want to avoid the chaotic and unclear value capture model of Uniswap, which is not suitable for long-term development. While we cannot provide completely clear answers at this time, the system design is highly aligned with the interests of the community, and we will be more open about the details in the future. In the meantime, the XPL token will play a vital role in this process and become a key driver of the entire system.

Relationship with Tether and ultimate vision

Host: On a scale of 100, Tether's co-founder believes their company is only at the 0.25 mark. What are your thoughts on Tether and its relationship to Plasma?

Paul Faecks: If Tether is at 0.25, then I think Plasma may only be at 0.00001, and we still have a lot of work to do.

The Tether team has clearly built a truly generational company, and they've made a lot of extremely long-term oriented decisions over the years, which we can only hope to emulate. I think USDT has already won the stablecoin game in a big way, with an extremely powerful distribution network that is extremely difficult to replicate.

For us, building Plasma around USDT has always been very clear. We have multiple stablecoins on our chain, but Tether is very dominant and has an extremely wide distribution moat, which I think is difficult to replicate. We admire them very much and enjoy working with them. I have the deepest respect for Paulo and the entire Tether team.

Host: Finally, for someone who is just getting started with Plasma, what is the one thing you most want them to know?

Paul Faecks: One thing I want everyone to know is this: We are going to win the stablecoin market. Stablecoins are going to be one of the largest markets in the world, the size of global GDP, and we want a piece of that pie. The future of global commerce will run on stablecoins, and Plasma will power it.