At the start of 2026, the stablecoin market crossed a symbolic threshold. Total market capitalization has now surpassed 300 billion dollars, with a peak at 311 billion in January according to DeFiLlama. No longer just trading instruments, stablecoins have become a global payment infrastructure in their own right. On an annual basis, they already process more than 30 trillion dollars in volume, particularly across cross-border payments, remittances, and key layers of decentralized finance.
This is the environment in which Plasma has emerged. Launched in September 2025, Plasma is an EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain built around a clear and radical idea: turning stablecoins into a currency that can be used at global scale. With more than 3 billion dollars in total value locked, nearly 7 billion dollars in stablecoin deposits, and a position among the top four networks worldwide by USDT balance, Plasma is not positioning itself as just another Layer-2. It is a purpose-built infrastructure designed for usage rather than speculation.
The broader market dynamics largely explain this momentum. USDT remains dominant, accounting for roughly 70 percent of total supply, followed by USDC. At the same time, new entrants such as USD1, backed by World Liberty Financial, have exceeded 5 billion dollars in capitalization within just a few months. Projections are ambitious. McKinsey and the U.S. Treasury estimate that the stablecoin market could reach 2 trillion dollars by 2028, while some analysts point to as much as 4 trillion by 2030. This growth is supported by strong fundamentals: near-instant transfers at marginal cost, 24/7 liquidity, and direct accessibility for nearly 1.7 billion unbanked people worldwide.
Until now, Tron has largely dominated USDT payments, concentrating more than half of global flows. Plasma enters the market with a different value proposition. Transfers operate at near-zero cost, transaction finality is achieved in under a second, and the entire ecosystem is fully EVM-compatible, allowing existing protocols to migrate seamlessly. While many networks attempt to be everything at once, Plasma deliberately focused on a single use case and optimized it end to end.
From a technical standpoint, the network delivers over 1,000 transactions per second, sub-second block times, and a PlasmaBFT consensus mechanism engineered for high performance. USDT transfer fees average around $0.20 and are often fully abstracted away through native fee mechanisms. A native Bitcoin bridge is under development, and full EVM compatibility enables frictionless deployment of existing DeFi applications. As a result, more than 100 protocols joined the network within its first months, including Aave, Ethena, Pendle, Euler, and Fluid.
The ecosystem extends beyond DeFi alone. Plasma One, the network’s consumer-facing product, positions itself as a stablecoin neobank offering a debit card, cashback, yield-bearing savings, and fiat integration across more than 100 countries and 100 currencies. This is where Plasma attempts to bridge the gap between crypto infrastructure and everyday financial usage.
Data observed in February 2026 confirms this trajectory. Total value locked stands at approximately 3 billion dollars and has remained relatively stable despite a gradual reduction in incentives. Stablecoin market capitalization on Plasma is around 1.87 billion dollars, with USDT representing more than 80 percent. Announced cumulative stablecoin deposits amount to 7 billion dollars. Bridged TVL is close to 6.7 billion dollars, while native TVL reaches roughly 4.7 billion. Daily DEX volume averages about 15 million dollars, with weekly growth exceeding 40 percent. The native token, XPL, trades near $0.10, corresponding to a market capitalization of roughly 213 million dollars and a fully diluted valuation close to 1 billion.
Plasma consistently ranks among the top 10 to 15 blockchains by stablecoin TVL and, according to certain metrics, holds the second-largest position in on-chain lending behind Ethereum. Its launch in September 2025 was particularly striking, with 14 billion dollars in TVL accumulated within five days and 5.6 billion within a week, temporarily placing Plasma just behind Tron.
The project is also supported by a strong group of backers. More than 75 million dollars has been raised from firms such as Framework, Founders Fund, Bitfinex, and Tether. Prominent figures from both the crypto ecosystem and regulatory institutions, including Paolo Ardoino, David Sacks, and former CFTC chairman Chris Giancarlo, have publicly expressed their support. Today, the ecosystem includes over 100 DeFi partners, multiple fiat on-ramp channels, and strategic integrations, notably with NEAR Intents. Plasma has placed particular emphasis on the MENA region, where inflationary pressures and banking constraints continue to drive strong demand for stablecoin-based payments.
Challenges remain. The XPL token has declined more than 85 percent from its all-time high, and significant token unlocks scheduled for July 2026, totaling approximately 2.5 billion tokens, continue to weigh on market sentiment. Stablecoin TVL has also retraced from its initial peaks before stabilizing. Competition remains intense, with Tron firmly established in low-cost USDT payments, Solana and Base attracting DeFi volumes, and new stablecoin-focused blockchains beginning to emerge.
The real test for Plasma will not be attracting additional opportunistic liquidity, but converting capital into genuine economic activity. If Plasma One reaches one million active users and real-world flows such as remittances, commerce, and merchant payments begin to scale, the network could become a core pillar of the crypto payments stack.
The stablecoin market represents one of the largest structural opportunities of the decade. A new global financial infrastructure is being built in real time, often outside traditional financial rails. Plasma has demonstrated that a blockchain designed from day one for stablecoin payments can compete with established giants. The coming months will be decisive. But if Plasma succeeds in turning its billions in deposits into everyday usage, it may well become the invisible infrastructure powering a significant share of the Web3 payment economy.
The future of global payments is no longer decided solely on Ethereum or Tron. It is also being shaped on #Plasma .