The recent market is quite poor, and most altcoins are declining. It seems to be a time when no one is paying attention. You might consider a small position in potential projects. I recommend XPL based on its background and potential.
First, let's talk about the background. Plasma actually has a significant background; it is not just some small project that suddenly appeared. The founder is Paul Faecks (CEO), who previously worked in crypto-related roles at places like Deribit and started Plasma in 2024. There is also co-founder Christian Angermayer, a guy with a lot of connections in the VC and traditional finance sectors. The team currently has about 50 members, with diverse backgrounds, including those who have jumped from major companies like Google, Facebook, Square, Goldman Sachs, and Temasek, as well as a few from Blast and Blur. Overall, the team's capability is above average for Layer 1 projects and not just a grassroots team. The financing and endorsements are even more impressive: they secured early investments from Bitfinex and Framework Ventures, and later Peter Thiel's Founders Fund also got involved (Peter Thiel has always been optimistic about payments and fintech). Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, also participated as an investor and advisor, and there are even rumors that the total financing of the project exceeded several hundred million dollars (including public offerings). These names combined represent a top-tier configuration of crypto + traditional finance, indicating that the project has been targeting institution-level stablecoin infrastructure from the start, rather than just focusing on retail narratives. The project itself is set to launch its mainnet in September 2025, primarily focusing on a 'stablecoin-native' Layer 1: zero-fee USDT transfers (sponsored gas through paymaster mechanism), 1s block time, high TPS, EVM compatibility, and partially anchored to Bitcoin's security (trust-minimized bridging). Shortly after its launch, TVL reached several hundred million or even higher (some data mentioned stablecoin deposits exceeding $7 billion), and even though the market is volatile now, the balance of stablecoins in the TVL remains among the top, indicating that real usage scenarios are being realized, not just speculative trading. Regarding potential, to be honest, the core aspect is still the stablecoin sector itself. In 2026, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has already surpassed trillions, with huge monthly trading volumes, especially in cross-border payments, remittances, and daily settlements. Traditional banks and SWIFT have high fees and slow speeds, while on-chain dollars (USDT/USDC, etc.) are increasingly being treated as 'Money 2.0'. Plasma does not want to be an all-purpose public chain but focuses on making stablecoin payments feasible: zero fees + instant transfers + programmability (DeFi integration). If it can capture even 5-10% of the global stablecoin traffic, the network's value will be considerable. XPL, as the native token, mainly serves network gas (non-USDT transfers, smart contracts), staking rewards, and governance, with a future fee burning mechanism gradually taking effect. Coupled with strict lock-up for the team and investors (3 years vesting + 1 year cliff), short-term selling pressure is relatively controllable. The current price hovers around $0.09-$0.10, with a market capitalization of about $170-$200 million, and FDV nearing $1 billion, which is not outrageous compared to some popular L1 valuations. If staking officially opens in 2026, with more ecological applications (payment, remittance dApps) and increased institutional participation, demand may rise, and after achieving supply-demand balance, XPL is expected to follow the network's activity level. Of course, there are still risks: overall market volatility, competition (other stablecoin chains are also in the race), regulatory issues (cross-border payment sensitivity), and mid-term unlocking pressure, etc. However, from the background and positioning, Plasma resembles an infrastructure player more than a meme or purely narrative project. If you already believe that stablecoins will continue to penetrate real-world payments, then holding some XPL as the ecosystem gradually develops is a relatively pragmatic approach, so I feel this project is still worth pursuing.
