This article is from: The Rollup

Translation｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina); Translator｜Azuma (@azumaeth)_

Editor’s Note: Plasma officially launched its mainnet and TGE last week, creating a new round of wealth creation myths with a market cap in the tens of billions, especially with its generous airdrop earning it the praise of being “the most visionary project of this round.”

On September 26, Paul Faecks, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of Plasma, was interviewed on The Rollup podcast. In the interview, Paul answered specific questions about the original intention of Plasma's airdrop, subsequent TVL retention strategies, XPL value capture, and future development plans for Plasma. Below is the original text of Paul’s podcast, translated by Odaily Planet Daily.

• Host: Paul, welcome! How have you been feeling these past few days?

Paul: Overall, this week has been very intense. Launching a new blockchain always involves many external factors, and not all of them are within our control, but so far, everything is going smoothly. However, everyone was exhausted yesterday.

• Host: Has the most difficult phase passed?

Paul: Not yet. We just officially announced the Plasma One product, and the real construction has just begun. The chain, DeFi, exchange components, etc., this is a huge system. (Crumbling) Oh my, we have a lot to do in the coming years.

• Host: How did you come up with the design for the XPL distribution plan? For example, the viral activity of “deposit 1 dollar to earn 10,000 dollars in XPL” has made many people a lot of money, and I think it has also helped you avoid a lot of FUD.

Paul: I think this generally aligns with our consistent way of operating. Our public sale rules have been clear and parameters transparent, allowing basically anyone to participate.

For us, it is very important to enter the market in a way that allows for widespread participation. Ultimately, things like stablecoin blockchains particularly need people to genuinely want to use them; you need it to develop organically from the ground up, only then can it truly work and create value.

• Host: Let’s talk about the current situation. What are the noteworthy yield opportunities on the Plasma chain right now? How do you ensure that the yields incentivized by XPL are sustainable and not just “mine and run”?

Paul: We have always known that distribution is crucial for achieving ubiquitous coverage, especially as a stablecoin chain.

I think one thing that might be overlooked is that we reached a quite large and scalable partnership with Binance Earn before the network went live. Binance has 280 million users, and they can now directly deposit assets on Plasma on the exchange, which is a huge breakthrough for us.

We are looking for ways to achieve large-scale distribution. To some extent, you cannot solely rely on crypto-native “nomadic liquidity” because their scalability is limited, and this liquidity is quite volatile; you cannot just base your strategy around them.

Sorry, I don’t want to seem like I’m dodging the question… Back to the sustainability of Plasma DeFi. I think the most important factor is building real organic use cases rather than purely paid incentives.

• Host: Do you have something that others don’t?

Paul: The best team in the crypto industry.

• Host: So that’s your moat. My question is, do you expect other teams to try to replicate this approach?

Paul: I truly believe we have an incredible team.

It might be unfair for me to mention anyone’s name here because I can’t name everyone… Especially Lucid, she is the best COO in the industry, Nathan is outstanding, Vinnie is doing a great job too, sorry for starting to name names, but I’m sure I’ll miss some people.

I genuinely believe this is a huge, huge moat. In my view, having extremely sharp, long-term visionaries who truly want to build something valuable is the greatest moat any company can have.

• Host: Currently, in the competition among stablecoin chains, there are several major players in the industry, like Circle, Stripe, and Tether, all trying to become the stablecoin transfer layer for the world. Last week, we invited Circle’s founder Jeremy Allaire to the show, and he mentioned wanting USDC to be as ubiquitous as Netflix. He talked about integrating stablecoins into a broader tech stack, just like we can use Chrome on any device, and he has a mindset of "growing the pie together." So I want to ask you, when you think about this "stablecoin chain war," how do you view the competitive landscape? Considering Plasma is a market pioneer, what is your advantage? In this context of "growing the pie together," what do you think Plasma will contribute?

Paul: The growth of stablecoins has just begun; the current scale is less than 300 billion dollars, but in the future, it will be in the trillions.

When we started, the questions we heard were not “how will you compete with Stripe,” but rather “what is the point of anything you are doing here,” “why does a stablecoin need a chain,” “isn’t it better to use Ethereum directly?”

So, it is very reassuring to see a change in market perception of our competitors; I think this reflects the evolution of the industry. We are indeed competing with one of the largest payment companies in the world, Stripe, but I believe what we are ultimately pursuing is different, and we have different methods of realization, so I don’t think we have a direct absolute competitive relationship with Tempo (Stripe’s blockchain).

I think truly winning this war on a large scale will be an absolute hard battle, and no one has done it yet. I genuinely don’t believe Ethereum and Tron have won on a large scale because what is called “scale” now will not be “scale” in two or three years. In the future, there will be stablecoin chains carrying hundreds of billions of dollars in stablecoins, with real daily flows in the trillions; that is the future we are striving for.

I won’t focus too much on the movements of competitors like Tempo and Codex; I have great respect for them, they are very sharp, but to some extent, we are pursuing different things.

• Host: Let’s talk about Plasma One. What is the vision for this product? If you see a headline about Plasma One applications five years from now, how would you like that headline to read?

Paul: I believe stablecoins, as a core infrastructure, are the perfect tech stack for building consumer-facing products. For us, on one hand, this is clearly a “distribution entry point”; on the other hand, I also believe it can truly provide users with a better financial experience.

I am a long-time user of stablecoins, and although I live in an environment with a relatively sound banking system and can access financial technology relatively well, I believe that is not the case in most parts of the world. Building new products based on stablecoins can create a much better experience than traditional banking channels, which is part of the reason we are building Plasma One.

• Host: Can you elaborate on the concept of a “distribution entry point”? I know this concept, but I haven’t heard anyone explain it like you just did. Maybe you can clarify this concept and how you are applying it?

Paul: Stablecoin chains heavily rely on network effects; you need to be ubiquitous, and you need to have an extremely broad coverage. In fact, what Tron excels at or used to excel at is achieving true end-user distribution, so this is crucial for us.

For us, the way to achieve this goal is to have something very specific that can actually use Plasma itself, and Plasma One is at least part of that.

We are particularly focused on user experience. Target markets include Turkey, Syria, Brazil, Argentina, etc., where users need seamless transfers and privacy protection, rather than complex wallet seed phrases and on-chain approval processes. Plasma One will strive to provide an experience comparable to or even better than traditional payment systems.

• Host: How will XPL achieve value accumulation? I’m not asking where you think XPL’s price will go, but more about how XPL will become a sustainable asset. I know some holders want to benchmark it against Circle or other payment giants’ stocks, viewing XPL as the best way to gain exposure to stablecoins. How will you help XPL holders achieve this goal?

Paul: XPL must be at the core of the Plasma economy; we will not take the path of fragmented value across multiple parties. We will gradually disclose the details, but it is certain that XPL will play a central role in the ecosystem and will always remain highly aligned with the community.

• Host: Tether’s co-CEO Paolo Ardoino tweeted a few days ago… In an interview, someone asked him to define a company’s growth stage from 0 to 100, and his answer was that Tether is at 0.25… Recently, there have also been rumors that Tether is raising 20 billion dollars at a 500 billion dollar valuation.

How important is Tether for Plasma?

Paul: First, let’s be clear, if Tether is at 0.25 now, we might be at 0.00001; we have a lot to do.

Tether has clearly built a truly epoch-making company, and they have made many long-term visionary decisions after years of hard work. These experiences are worth emulating for Plasma.

I believe USDT has largely won the stablecoin game; that’s my view, and I might have some vested interest, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but I genuinely believe that’s the case. For us, Plasma will build around USDT, and that has always been very clear. We have multiple stablecoins on our chain; I obviously believe in the future of multi-stablecoins, but Tether is so incredibly dominant and has such an extensive distribution moat that I think it’s hard to replicate.

We do appreciate them and really enjoy working with them. I have the deepest respect for Paulo and the entire Tether team.

• Host: Last question, if someone just learned about Plasma, what do you want them to know?

Paul: One thing I want everyone to know is — we will win the stablecoin war. I believe stablecoins will become one of the largest markets in the world, and that’s not an exaggeration. Its total target market is the global GDP, and in the future, global commerce will run on stablecoin rails, and Plasma will power it.

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