Bitfinex-backed stablecoin blockchain Plasma just launched its much-anticipated mainnet beta and native token, XPL<\/p>\n
Plasma, a Layer 1 blockchain designed for stablecoins<\/a>, just launched its mainnet beta and native token XPL today, Sept. 25, as planned<\/a>, with billions in stablecoin liquidity deployed across major DeFi<\/a> partners such as Aave, Ethena, Fluid and Euler.<\/p>\n The network, backed by Bitfinex, Bybit, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, American billionaire Peter Thiel and others, is launching with a 10 billion XPL total supply, of which around 1.8 billion XPL tokens are currently circulating at launch, per CoinGecko<\/a> data. <\/p>\n At press time, XPL is trading just above $1, with a market cap of $1.9 billion and a fully diluted value (FDV) of about $10.4 billion.<\/p>\n Hyperliquid\u2019s pre-launch perpetual market was pricing XPL around $0.80, implying a $1.44\u202fbillion circulating market cap and an around $8 billion FDV.<\/p>\n XPL was trading on major decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and PancakeSwap at approximately $1 in the first hour after launch, giving early public sale buyers, who bought XPL at $0.05 earlier this year<\/a>, roughly 20x returns on their investments. <\/p>\n Centralized exchanges \u2014 including Plasma backer Bitfinex, as well as top CEXs by 24-hour volume like Binance, OKX, and Bitget \u2014 listed XPL for spot trading around 9 a.m. ET, and the token has since dropped to near $0.70 within the first 20 minutes of CEX listings. <\/p>\n Plasma\u2019s tokenomics for XPL allocated<\/a> 10% of token supply to a public sale, which ran in July of this year and ended up being oversubscribed by more than $300 million<\/a>. The team also set aside 40% of the token supply for ecosystem growth, with 8% unlocked at launch, and 25% each to team and investors under multi-year vesting.<\/p>\n And while around 1.8 billion XPL tokens \u2014 or about 18% of the total supply \u2014 are evidently available at launch, some of this circulating supply could belong to U.S. sale participants, whose XPL will not be distributed to them until July 28, 2026, for regulatory reasons. The delayed vesting schedule for U.S. participants means that the actual freely tradable supply could be lower.<\/p>\n The Defiant reached out to Plasma to clarify the situation, but has not heard back by press time. <\/p>\n Some note that the valuation could still seem high relative to adoption. Delphi Digital analyst @simononchain explained<\/a> on X on Sept. 24 that even though Plasma has no live adoption yet, markets often focus on large crypto opportunities like stablecoins.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though presalers in from 500M FDV are already sitting on ~14x at current pre-market levels, there is a decent chance the market frames Plasma as a long-tail way to get exposure to Tether, which is quickly becoming one of the world\u2019s most valuable companies,\u201d the analyst wrote in the X post. <\/p>\n As The Defiant reported earlier, Plasma will already have several ready-to-use products at launch.<\/p>\n For example, Swarm, a DeFi platform, is launching<\/a> nine tokenized equities on Plasma, issued under the EU Prospectus Regulation, giving holders legal rights to the underlying securities. <\/p>\nXPL Tokenomics<\/h2>\n
Plasma\u2019s Products at Launch<\/h2>\n