Plasma, the EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechain geared toward stablecoins, opened the doors to its token sale today for users who staked stablecoins in the Plasma vault in June.
The chain is selling 10% of the XPL token supply at a $500 million valuation, utilizing the Sonar ICO platform to facilitate Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. The token sale will be open to eligible participants for roughly ten days, with the XPL token slated to officially launch alongside the Plasma mainnet beta.
Plasma is backed by USDT issuer Tether’s sister company, Bitfinex, as well as Framework Ventures and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
The chain is purpose-built for stablecoin transactions and is designed for a cheaper, faster, and programmable environment for payments and value transfer, including zero-fee USDT transfers. The chain holds $1 billion in stablecoin liquidity, provided by the vault contributors.
The staking period and token sale come amid a red-hot stablecoin market, led by Circle’s CRCL stock, which went public in June and has rallied more than tenfold to $299, from the $27-$31 IPO price.
Paul Faecks, the founder of Plasma, said, “Global users see stablecoins as a superior alternative to traditional payment systems, which are slow, leading to massive capital efficiency tradeoffs…At Plasma, we’re building the future of global payments by making stablecoin transactions as seamless and cost-free as they should be.”
“Through the public token sale, we want to continue expanding more globally, ensuring users everywhere have access to fast, cheap, and secure stablecoin services, allowing everyday people to send money across borders instantly,” Faecks concluded.
