Plasma has launched Plasma One, the first neobank fully designed around stablecoins. The service focuses on digital dollar operations and aims to simplify storage, transfers, and everyday payments.
Plasma CEO Paul Faecks stated that stablecoins have long been a key product in the crypto market, but infrastructure for them remains limited: fees on Ethereum are too high, while Tron suffers from centralization. According to him, neither of these networks was originally built to handle the current scale of digital dollar transactions.
In 2024, the volume of stablecoin transactions reached $32.8 trillion, surpassing Visa. According to Token Terminal, the total stablecoin supply amounted to $235 billion, which is about 1,1% of the U.S. M2 money supply. The market leader is Tether USDT with $142 billion in circulation and more than 400 million users.
Ethereum and Tron remain the key networks for stablecoins, accounting for $130 billion and $66 billion respectively. However, transfer fees are several dollars, making these networks inconvenient for small payments.
According to Plasma, Tron processed $5.4 trillion in transactions in 2024, but in Faecks’ view, the network is effectively controlled by a limited number of validators, raising questions about neutrality.
Project Potential
Faecks emphasized that the rapid growth of the market opens opportunities for new infrastructure solutions. He highlighted examples of stablecoin use cases outside the crypto sector:
- international trade deals, including a $45 million oil transaction in the Middle East region
- the use of stablecoins in high-inflation countries, where the premium for purchasing them reached 30%
- pilot projects by banks such as MUFG for stablecoin-based settlements in export financing
According to companies working with this asset class, the overall market for stablecoin tokenization could reach trillions by 2030.
Plasma stated that Plasma One is integrated with its own blockchain infrastructure and supports USDT transfers with zero fees, as well as card payments. The launch is tied to the beta release of its mainnet on September 25. The company plans to test the product in developing countries where access to the dollar is limited.
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