The Rise of Stablecoin Public Chains: Can Plasma and Stable Reshape the Global Payment Landscape?

Stablecoins are gradually penetrating traditional finance and retail markets, with an increasingly rich variety of application scenarios. To support this expansion trend, the backing of new infrastructure is particularly important. Recently, stablecoin-related chains such as Plasma and Stable have attracted market attention.

These two projects aim to achieve faster, cheaper, and more scalable stablecoin transfer functions. Their core strategy is to draw funds from the older networks that are less efficient but still hold a large amount of stablecoins. Although there are some differences between the two, there are more similarities, especially in that both use USDT as the core hub.

Plasma, built as a Bitcoin sidechain, inherits the security of Bitcoin while maintaining its own independent consensus mechanism. This system is specifically designed for high-frequency trading and fast confirmations, making it very suitable for rapid transfers of USDT. Its most notable feature is that basic USDT transfers incur no GAS fees at all, attracting users through free transfers to create a network effect.

Stable has adopted an independent first-layer network solution, utilizing a self-developed proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It is also compatible with EVM, and the Gas fee for USDT transfers is zero, but other on-chain operations still require a fee. It is worth noting that Stable only accepts USDT as the currency for Gas fee payments.

Both networks place a high emphasis on privacy protection and have adopted different technological solutions to safeguard transaction privacy. In addition, Stable also plans to add enterprise-exclusive blockchain space services and a USDT transfer aggregator, among other institution-friendly features.

The core strategy of this type of public chain is to target ecosystems with weak DeFi foundations for liquidity absorption. Their goal is to build a hub centered around USDT payments and business settlements, leveraging the advantage of free transfers to surpass inefficient chain ecosystems. This could give rise to a new system similar to SWIFT, specifically serving stablecoins, where Tether not only issues stablecoins but also becomes a dual cornerstone for supporting currency value and underlying infrastructure.

Plasma has gained market recognition through public token sales, with a total deposit amount within the subscription limit reaching $1 billion. In addition, Plasma has promoted several collaborations involving USDT transfers in Africa, the connection between the Turkish lira and stablecoins, and commodity trading.

However, the concept of "stablecoin chain" may just be a clever marketing strategy to create a spotlight effect for USDT and generate hype with the gimmick of zero Gas fees. This is essentially a free value-added model in the trading field.

In the future, the key focus for the development of these two chains will be how to differentiate themselves in competition, choose the best market channels, and whether they can create a sustainable business ecosystem. Regardless, the emergence of stablecoin public chains undoubtedly brings new possibilities to the global payment sector, and their development trends are worth continuous attention.