Many people are undoubtedly disappointed to have missed out on @PlasmaFDN and are eagerly anticipating Tether's other stablecoin chain, @Stable. Of course, there's also confusion about why @Tether_to is pursuing a dual-edged strategy of Plasma and Stable. Will Stable issue a token? What exactly is Tether, the king of stablecoins, up to? Let me share my understanding: Simply put: Tether's dual-edged strategy of Plasma and Stable is effectively a bid to recoup the market dividends it has ceded to Ethereum and Tron over the years, achieving a major business model transformation from a stablecoin issuer to a global payment infrastructure provider. 1) First, let's talk about the issue of reclaiming the pie. USDT currently has a market capitalization of $170 billion, with annual transaction volume exceeding even that of PayPal and Visa combined. Tether, however, only earns 3-4% in Treasury bond interest. While this represents $13 billion in annual profit, it pales in comparison to the value it actually creates. How do you understand this? For example, USDT, a key source of DeFi liquidity, generates annual transaction fees that are effectively paid to the Ethereum network (fluctuating gas fees). This fee cost is borne by users and captured by the Ethereum network, while Tether does not profit from it. If Tether launches its own stablecoin chain, theoretically, this portion of transaction fees could be pocketed. Furthermore, it's well known that Tron has profited immensely from USDT payment demand, with revenue expected to reach nearly $2 billion in 2024 alone. Tether doesn't directly benefit from this revenue. Thus, Tether's direct motivation for combining Plasma and Stablecoin is to reclaim the DeFi ecosystem's revenue, including USDT transaction fees and payment service fees, that have long been controlled by Ethereum and Tron. This severely limits Tether's control over its vast USDT stablecoin economy. With the maturation and deployment of Plasma and Stablecoin infrastructure, it's time to reclaim these long-ceded dividends. 2) So, how should we understand the respective roles of Plasma and Stablecoin? Plasma $XPL is a stablecoin chain backed by Tether's sister company @bitfinex and invested in by @peterthiel. It's marketed as a consumer-focused platform, leveraging Bitcoin's security and censorship resistance. Its key advantage is its ability to challenge PayPal's dominance in the payments industry through TradFi, while also integrating with over 100 DeFi protocols to siphon off native crypto yields. For example, the Plasma One neo-bank product portfolio offers a 10% passive savings return and a 4% cashback debit card. Without regulatory hurdles, it would undoubtedly cause a stir in the traditional payments market, seizing market share from legacy payment systems like PayPal. For another example, Plasma integrates the entire crypto infrastructure through EVM compatibility, aiming to incorporate profitable protocols like @aave and @ethena_labs into its revenue portfolio, thereby solidifying its debit card's interest-earning advantage. Otherwise, how could Plasma One offer a 10% savings return in addition to the 4% yield on government bonds? Furthermore, Plasma introduces dedicated channels, subsidizing user gas fees through paymasters. This shifts the network congestion costs typically associated with navigating the Crypto DeFi ecosystem onto the protocol itself, achieving zero-fee transactions. This is highly attractive to end-users. Stable, a "pure USDT" stablecoin chain planned to be issued by Tether itself, is a B2B payment chain that uses USDT as a gas and settlement layer and is likely to focus on payment and settlement scenarios. Based on this understanding, two questions are answered: 1. Will Stable issue coins? According to a recent interview with Tether CEO @paoloardoino, Stable will maintain minimal complexity and will not add additional token mechanisms. In other words, no new coins will be issued for the time being; $USDT is the coin it already issues. 2. What is the purpose of Stable's existence? It's highly likely to replace Tron's USDT ecosystem, aiming to integrate B2B payment channels. For example, it recently introduced PayPal's PYUSD. It seems Stable intends to serve as a settlement layer between stablecoins, further strengthening USDT's position as the dominant stablecoin. Furthermore, if Stable issues new coins, it will directly impact XPL's ability to capture ecosystem value. Plasma and Stable are fully interoperable, using XPL tokens to incentivize Stable's channel partners, helping various stablecoin issuers better utilize Stable's settlement capabilities. Meanwhile, integrating with Plasma will capture the value siphoned from the entire USDT ecosystem. So, if Plasma realizes its ambition to reshape traditional payment infrastructure like PayPal, and if it achieves its goal of reclaiming the value of Crypto's years of DeFi stablecoin economic vitality, will you still consider the current 12B FDV high? Of course, business ambition and actual implementation are two different things. Native crypto ecosystems like Ethereum and Tron won't sit idly by and watch Plasma take over their market share, as user migration takes time. Traditional payment giants like Paypal and Visa won't surrender easily either. What if regulators determine the 10% reserve for Plasma One is illegal? Clearly, there's still a lot of uncertainty. But one thing is certain: Tether, after years of operating as a stablecoin issuer, is now aiming for the even more ambitious goal of becoming a global payments infrastructure giant. Whether or not this can be achieved isn't important; what matters most is how many opportunities we, along the way, can seize!

Using xpl to subsidize stable users? Impossible. What the hell are you writing?

These netizens are so hard to please... Let's get to the point!