plasmafoundation

@Plasma

The idea of disappearing technology is really interesting when it comes to designing products. The best tools are the ones that you do not even notice are there. For example when you turn on the faucet you do not think about the pipes, behind it. You just use the water. When you send an email you do not think about the servers that make it possible. Disappearing technology is successful when you forget that it is there. The technology is doing its job when you are not aware of it like when you use a faucet or send an email with disappearing technology. Disappearing technology is what makes things easy to use.

This idea came to me at 2am when I was looking into plasma and it completely changed the way I think about blockchain infrastructure. I mean blockchain infrastructure is something I was really looking into and plasma is a part of that. So now when I think about blockchain infrastructure I think about plasma and how it affects everything.

We have spent years in the crypto world being happy about how complicated thingsre. We have been learning about gas optimization strategies and bridge arbitrage and MEV protection. These are things we have gotten good at because the system we use made us need to learn them. But if we take a step back and think about it we have to ask ourselves: is this really making things better. Are we just getting used to a bad situation? The crypto world is still about these complicated things, like gas optimization strategies and MEV protection.

My friend Jia uses her banking app to send money. She does not think about things like SWIFT codes or fees from other banks. It is really easy for her to do this. She can just send the money. Forget about it.. When she wants to send USDT it is a lot more complicated. She has to think about how busy the network's if she has enough gas tokens. She also has to think about how it will take for the transaction to be confirmed. Sending USDT is just not as simple, as using her banking app. My friend Jia has to do a lot of math in her head when she sends USDT.

Plasma has a system where you do not have to pay any fees. This is not about saving money. It is about how people should feel when they make payments. The Paymaster mechanism makes things really easy for you. You have stablecoins. You can send them to others. The rest is taken care of by the system. Plasmas system is like that because that is what the people who made it think payments should be, like. You just hold onto your stablecoins. Send them when you need to. The infrastructure does all the work.

I have been thinking about why payment friction matters and it's not just about convenience. There is research that shows payment friction does not just slow down transactions it actually changes the way people behave when it comes to payment friction. Small fees can create a lot of hesitation when it comes to payment friction. For example a fifty cent gas fee on a ten dollar transfer is not going to hurt people but it can still make them resistant, to payment friction. Because of payment friction people will often batch their transactions together delay making payments or they will just avoid the system that is causing payment friction altogether.

Plasma is betting on zero fees because they want to make things easy for people to use. They are making this for the grandmother who lives in Manila and gets money from her family not for the person who trades and tries to get the most out of yield farms. Plasma is thinking about people like the grandmother in Manila who just wants to send and receive money without any problems. Plasma wants to make sure that people, like her can use their service without getting confused.

Here is what I think about this. Nothing is really free. The Paymaster mechanism helps pay for things. Someone still has to pay for them. I looked into the money part of it. Found out that the help, with costs comes from the way the system is set up and how the people who validate things get paid. The Paymaster mechanism is only going to work if a lot of people are using it I mean a big number of transactions.

This is a weird situation. Zero fees are really good, at getting people to use something. When people use it that creates a lot of activity.. All that activity makes it okay to have a model where we do not charge people.. If not enough people start using it then the whole money thing falls apart. Zero fees are what attract users to something. Users are what create volume. Volume is what justifies the subsidy model of zero fees.

Jia said something that I really remembered. The thing about the Rain card and Visa network is not, about working together. These are ways to get users without having to go through the usual process of using cryptocurrency. Someone can use the Plasma system without realizing they are using the blockchain. All they know is that they have a card that works.

This ability to be invisible is actually a plan. Most companies want people to know their name. They want people to think their technology is great. Plasma is different it is happy to work behind the scenes. This is a thing to see in an industry where everyone wants to be famous. Plasma is like the pipes in your house you do not see them. They are very important. This is a kind of humility for a company in an industry that really wants to be noticed. Plasma is okay with being, like the plumbing.

The Bitcoin anchoring is really important here. It adds another layer to this way of thinking. When Bitcoin is used to record the state of things from time to time Plasma gets to use the security that Bitcoin is known for. This means that people who use Plasma do not have to know all the details, about how it works. The Bitcoin anchoring gives Plasma a kind of security that people can trust even if they do not understand it. This is what you might call trust that is passed down from Bitcoin to Plasma. The Bitcoin anchoring is what makes this trust possible.

I always go back, to the idea of forgetting. If Plasma is successful people will not even mention it. They will just send money without giving it a thought. Plasma technology will become a part of life and people will not even notice it is there. Plasma will be something that people use every day. They will forget that Plasma is even involved.

For people who invest this is a strange situation. The more Plasma does what it is supposed to do the less people will notice it. The value of XPL will come from being something that people really need not from people getting excited about it. This is a different reason to invest in XPL than it is for most other crypto assets. Plasma is doing its job when people do not even think about it because it is just working well. The value of XPL comes from Plasma being a part of the system not, from people talking about how great it is.

Whether that thesis plays out depends on execution. But I find myself respecting the ambition. In a market obsessed with attention, building for invisibility takes courage.
#plasma #Plasma