$500 million public offering "sold out in seconds," deeply integrated with Tether, an article to understand the stablecoin dedicated chain Plasma

Author: momo, ChainCatcher

Amid the surge of stablecoins, the stablecoin-specific chain Plasma has recently completed a $500 million public offering.

Plasma originally planned to raise $50 million, but within minutes of opening staking, deposits reached the $500 million subscription cap, attracting over 1,100 wallets, with a median staking amount of $35,000.

According to crypto analyst @ai_9684xtpa, a certain address spent about $100,000 in gas fees to become the first address to deposit into Plasma.

Why was Plasma's $500 million quota quickly "snapped up"? What are the characteristics of Plasma's stablecoin-specific chain? This article provides a brief overview of the project.

Deeply Tied to T ether, Strong Investor Lineup

In just over six months, Plasma has completed three rounds of financing, boasting a strong lineup of investors.

l In October 2024, Plasma announced the completion of a $3.5 million round led by Bitfinex, with participation from Manifold Trading, Anthos Capital, Karatage, Split Capital, and Christian Angermayer.

l In February 2025, Plasma announced another $24 million round led by Framework Ventures. Bitfinex continued to participate in this round, which also attracted Tether CEO & Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino, as well as renowned institutions and individuals such as Mirana Ventures, Cumberland DRW, Flow Traders, Bybit, IMC Trading, Karatage, Nomura Holdings, and Cobie.

l In May 2025, Plasma announced a strategic investment from Founders Fund, the venture capital firm founded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

It is noteworthy that Bitfinex, closely linked to Tether, and Tether CEO & Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino are both investors. Moreover, Plasma's close collaboration with Tether extends far beyond financial support.

Tether enjoys fee-free trading and whitelist gas payment privileges on Plasma, while Plasma supports USDT0—the cross-chain version of Tether—facilitating seamless transfers of USDT across different blockchains.

What are the Characteristics of Plasma's Stablecoin-Specific Chain?

In the past, there have been numerous dedicated chains focused on applications like gaming, social networking, and AI, but there are indeed few "dedicated chains" for such high-frequency stablecoin trading. Plasma has seized this market gap, aiming to create a stablecoin-specific chain.

Plasma's core goal is to optimize the stablecoin trading experience, with key features primarily in the following aspects:

Zero-fee Transfers for USDT. This feature is designed specifically for USDT payments, allowing users to choose to wait a bit longer for fee-free transfers.

Anchoring to Bitcoin's Network Security. Plasma chose not to build on Ethereum or other general-purpose public chains but instead anchored its state root to the Bitcoin network by constructing a Bitcoin sidechain, inheriting its decentralization and high security, eliminating single points of failure, and providing trust-minimized stablecoin settlement.

Custom Gas Tokens. Users can pay transaction fees using authorized tokens like USDT or BTC, without needing to hold Plasma's native gas token XPL. The off-chain system automatically converts to XPL at market price, simplifying user operations.

High Throughput and Low Latency. Plasma employs the PlasmaBFT consensus mechanism (evolved from Fast HotStuff), supporting thousands of transactions per second with low end-to-end latency, meeting the high-frequency trading needs of stablecoins.

100% EVM Compatibility. Plasma supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to seamlessly deploy Ethereum smart contracts and build stablecoin-related applications without modifying code.

Additionally, Plasma is also researching privacy transactions, enhancing user privacy protection by concealing transaction details (without sacrificing compliance).

Team Background and Latest Developments

Plasma's founder, Paul Faecks, is also the CEO and co-founder of another institutional investor DeFi platform, Alloy. Paul Faecks previously worked at Deribit and graduated from the Technical University of Munich.

Plasma's CTO, Hans, was the CEO of Layer1 Topl. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine, and holds a master's and Ph.D. in computer science from Arizona State University.

In terms of progress, Plasma plans to launch the mainnet beta version in the second quarter of 2025, at which point it will introduce DeFi services related to lending and trading around stablecoins.

In terms of ecosystem collaboration, Plasma has established strategic partnerships with protocols such as Ethena, Aave, Morpho, Curve, and Maker.