You know that feeling when a tool just works? You don't think about the engineering. You just use it. I was paying a friend back for lunch, and for a second, I thought about the chain I was using. The fee, the wait. It pulled me out of the moment.
That's when a project like @Plasma starts to make a different kind of sense. We talk about TVL and token price (and hey, $XPL), but the real goal is to become unseen. To be the infrastructure so reliable and frictionless that you forget it's there.
Think about it. Its core promises are all about removal.
Removing fee friction with gasless stablecoin transfers.
Removing asset friction by letting you pay fees in what you're already holding.
Removing finality friction with settlement faster than a credit card ping.
The recent work—like the NEAR Intents integration—is about removing another layer: chain friction. Making movement between ecosystems feel native.
This isn't about building the flashiest park in the digital city. It's about paving the roads, laying the pipes, and wiring the grid so well that everyone can build, live, and move without ever worrying about the "how."
For a chain built for settlement, that's the ultimate goal. To not be a destination you think about, but the conduit you trust. The utility isn't in a dazzling feature you show off. It's in the boring, perfect reliability you eventually take for granted.
But here's a question: in crypto, where hype is currency, can a project succeed by striving to become boring?