Recently tried out Plasma, a public chain built specifically for stablecoins. The experience was quite interesting and worth analyzing.

Their biggest highlight is the USDT fee-free transfer. I tested it myself and it indeed works. The core is achieved through their Relayer API to enable gasless transfers, but there is a limitation — you must apply for an API key from the team to use it. It’s not an open public interface, and there is also a rate limit.

Another considerate feature is support for using USDT or pBTC as gas fees, which is quite friendly for newcomers, saving the trouble of buying dedicated ecosystem tokens. However, if you use the Custom Gas feature, you need to authorize the Paymaster contract first. The operation process is a bit more complex than using native tokens. The confidential payment feature sounds promising, but the official documentation clearly states that it will be gradually released after the mainnet Beta, so it’s not usable yet.

Compared to competitors like Solana and Base, Plasma’s advantage lies in full EVM compatibility, allowing developers to reuse toolchains seamlessly. But honestly, Base now also has low transaction fees, and its ecosystem is mature. That’s a real issue. More shocking data: Plasma’s TVL has dropped from around $2.1 billion to about $13 million, a decline of over 99%. That number is quite alarming.

However, from another perspective, with official backing from Tether, and top protocols like Aave and Fluid gradually moving in, there is still long-term potential. The key issue is that they currently only have 2 validator nodes, which means decentralization is clearly insufficient. If you care about security, this point must be carefully weighed.