Hugo雨果

Entering 2026, stablecoins are no longer "crypto toys" but are the core pillar of global financial infrastructure. With daily transfer volumes reaching trillions of dollars, traditional cross-border payment models like Swift and Visa are quietly being replaced. In this trillion-dollar arena, @Plasma stands out, becoming a high-performance Layer 1 specifically designed for stablecoins (especially USDT).
Plasma's core selling point is "zero-fee USDT transfers"—with the built-in paymaster mechanism, ordinary users can send USD₮ without needing to hold $XPL to pay gas fees, making it as smooth as sending a WeChat red envelope. This addresses the biggest pain point of stablecoins: high gas fees and slow confirmations that deter everyday payments. PlasmaBFT consensus achieves @1-second block times and over 1000 TPS, far exceeding most L1s, truly making on-chain payments comparable to Web2 experiences. Not only that, Plasma is fully EVM compatible, allowing developers to directly migrate Solidity contracts and integrate with top DeFi protocols like Aave and Superlend. After the mainnet beta launch, TVL quickly surpassed several billion dollars, with stablecoin deposits ranking at the forefront, supporting over 25 types of stablecoins, covering more than 100 countries and over 200 payment methods. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino personally supports it, with Bitfinex leading the investment, backed by top institutions like Framework Ventures—this is not an ordinary project, but a “stablecoin native chain” with compliance and institutional endorsement.

In the second week of January, the DuskEVM mainnet officially launched. This is not just another 'EVM', but a Layer1 with compliance and privacy, honed over six years. Developers can now directly write smart contracts in Solidity and deploy them on this native chain that supports confidential transactions. The Hedger privacy module is the biggest highlight: it combines zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) + fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), completely hiding transaction amounts and participant identities while maintaining regulatory auditability—this is exactly the 'verifiable privacy' that traditional finance needs the most.

The more significant news is yet to come: the DuskTrade platform is expected to officially launch in 2026, in deep collaboration with the licensed Dutch exchange NPEX. NPEX currently manages assets exceeding €300,000,000, with a large number of securitized products waiting to be put on the chain. DuskTrade is not an ordinary DEX, but a truly regulated trading venue for RWA, supporting on-chain issuance, trading, and settlement, balancing immediacy and privacy protection. The waiting list is already open, which means compliant institutions and qualified investors will soon be able to trade real-world assets directly on the blockchain without worrying about data leaks or compliance risks.

Vanar Chain's recent community dynamics have been overwhelming – the developer fund has officially launched, and the Q1 subscription model allows advanced AI tools to directly use $VANRY for payment, this double buff feels like holding an 'internal acceleration conference' for AI agents. The fund invests money to incentivize developers, and the subscription consumes tokens to form a closed loop, with $VANRY's demand transitioning from conceptual PPT to a daily necessity, slowly turning the buy-back and burn cycle into a vibrant one.

To be honest, there are many AI + blockchain projects that are dazzling, most of which stop at demo or PPT, but Vanar has firmly established intelligence from the bottom: Neutron provides persistent memory, Kayon makes real-time decisions, and the cross-chain Base attracts user base, with ecological mini-apps emerging faster and faster. Under the incentive of the developer fund, community tools are expected to increase, managing payments, RWA audits, and daily optimizations in these scenarios, with $VANRY as the gas and settlement token, practicality is genuinely improving. Perhaps some may think it is too early to be optimistic, but after getting hands-on, I feel that Vanar focuses on 'intelligent economic infrastructure', starting from entertainment and shifting to real agency scenarios.

First, the conclusion: this fact itself is one of the hardest long-term narratives of Bitcoin, and it is also the core reason why many people underestimate Bitcoin's value anchor.

In the past 5 years (2020-2025), the Federal Reserve's balance sheet surged from $4.2 trillion to about $9 trillion (peaking close to $9 trillion), and the M2 money supply skyrocketed from $15.4 trillion to around $21.8 trillion. A simple calculation shows that the proportion of new dollars to the total supply indeed approaches 80%. This is not a conspiracy theory, but the Federal Reserve's publicly available data: pandemic QE, fiscal stimulus, long-term low interest rates, and the banking system's lending multiplier expansion… various tools have been deployed to forcefully 'print' the total amount of dollars to a new height.

Imagining large cross-border settlements for enterprises, I used to worry about on-chain privacy leaks or compliance delays. Now, with Hedger, the funding path is automatically invisible, and proving cleanliness during audits is just a click away, making efficiency feel like we've removed an intermediary. To be honest, I got burned by regulations when I played with fully anonymous chains in the early days, and I also experienced the awkwardness of transparent chains. Dusk's modular design feels like handing institutions a 'side door invitation'—are you brave enough to step in? After the DuskEVM mainnet stabilizes and with high Solidity compatibility, I wrote a small RWA custody script for testing. Transfer confirmations are sub-second, audits are effortless, and the freedom in coding has increased significantly. DuskTrade is steadily advancing its partnership with the Netherlands' NPEX, the platform carries MTF, brokerage, and ECSP licenses, directly connecting to traditional securities markets, aiming for over €30 billion in asset tokenization on-chain. The waitlist is getting longer, and I'm in line, imagining how it would be to connect directly to DuskTrade's interface while writing contracts: privacy is enabled by default when securities flow, investor holdings are not exposed, compliance can be proven with a single click during tax audits, and the liquidity of old assets transforms from stagnant to vibrant, lowering the threshold for corporate financing. As a developer, this means more real scenarios to test—no longer just conceptual contracts, but practical tools that are exciting to write.

In the beginning, I didn't take the Plasma payment chain seriously. I always thought that 'zero gas sub-second arrival' sounded too idealistic, and in practice, it would probably be slow and expensive. However, after bridging some USDT to try it out, my perspective completely changed. The mainnet runs stably, and transferring small amounts to overseas friends is as fast as sending instant messages, with the fee displayed on the screen as 0—zero gas is not just a marketing claim. The paymaster mechanism directly allows stablecoins to consume gas, enabling users to operate smoothly without holding $XPL . EVM compatibility also makes it easy for developers to get started. I casually deployed a small payment script for testing and confirmed that the sub-second level did not drop the chain. This experience, compared to the painful few dollars in gas during Ethereum's peak, feels like jumping from the Stone Age to the 5G era.

After the subscription model of Vanar Chain was launched, I paid more attention to the actual consumption. The advanced AI tool Q1 directly burns $VANRY for payment. Once this mechanism started, the demand for tokens shifted from a concept to a daily necessity, and the buyback and burn flywheel slowly began to turn. The price is still hovering at a low level of 0.008-0.009, and the market value has not been pushed up by hot money. I added a small position, not betting on a short-term speculative surge, but because I believe this chain's AI infrastructure can withstand the test of time.

After bridging to Base, I stored some transaction logs and personal notes with myNeutron, making on-chain queries as fast as flipping through my phone's notes. Subscribing to burn $VANRY unlocks deeper reasoning, and the Kayon engine allows agents to remember context, like a reliable old assistant that helps avoid high gas periods or risky paths in advance. During PayFi payments, it automatically selects the optimal route, and during RWA allocation, it conveniently adjusts the weights, saving me a surprising amount of time and costs. The security automation of Flows has also been a big help, with abnormal detection directly freezing notifications, which reduces my worries when writing contracts.