Where Money Moves - Edition #7

Stablecoins continue to be the hottest topic in financial innovation. Over the last fortnight, we saw clear demand from institutions, fintechs, funds, retail participants and more. 

Why? Because stablecoins are more than just digital dollars; they are the backbone of today’s crypto markets and the foundation for a new global financial system.

Plasma Deposit Campaign Reaches Cap of $1 Billion

This week, Plasma went live with its deposit campaign in the lead up to the XPL public sale. As announced here, 10% of the total XPL supply will be sold in a public sale, priced at a $500 million fully diluted network valuation, matching our recent strategic raise led by Founders Fund. In order to obtain an allocation in the public sale participants have to earn units by depositing liquidity into our vaults.

On Monday, we opened the initial cap to $500 million. This filled in under 5 minutes. Later in the week the cap was raised to $1 billion, which filled in 30 minutes. We are thrilled that just under 3,000 wallets participated in the deposit campaign, with a median deposit amount of ~$12,000.

To learn more about our public sale and the network, we suggest reading the two research reports released over the last week:

• Plasma: Stablecoin Infrastructure & The Trillion Dollar Opportunity by Delphi Digital

• Plasma: The Stablecoin Singularity by Kairos Research

Stablecoin Spotlight: What’s Top of Mind

Following Stripe’s recent acquisition of Bridge, the payment company has announced another crypto related acquisition; Privy. Privy offers customers the ability to build crypto wallets embedded directly into their platforms. These wallets focus on onboarding, offering a variety of familiar login and signup tools, including passkey, Google and more.

This acquisition allows Stripe to further its promise made in its 2024 Annual Letter: “Stripe’s platform will be the best way to build with stablecoins”. With Privy, Stripe emerges with a “Bank in a Box” stack, built entirely on non-custodial crypto rails. Bridge provides compliant fiat on/off ramps for customers, Privy enables embedded self-custody wallets and this is all through Stripe’s developer platform.

The deal terms were undisclosed, however, like their previous acquisition of Bridge, Privy will continue to operate independently. More broadly, it is likely that we see more acquisitions within the space of stablecoin payments from traditional payment companies and fintechs.

What’s New with Stablecoins

1️⃣ Circle shares (CRCL) soared on the NSYE

After selling roughly 34 million shares in its initial public offering and raising $1.1 billion with a valuation of $6.9 billion, Circle’s CRCL shares soared by over 200% to a price of over $135. This listing marks Circle’s long-awaited arrival to public markets following previous attempts, including a failed SPAC deal in 2021. The successful IPO clearly displays the strong institutional appetite for stablecoins and stablecoin issuers. 

2️⃣ Shopify teams up with Coinbase and Stripe in stablecoin payments push

Shopify, in collaboration with Coinbase and Stripe, has announced it will enable merchants to accept payments in Circle’s USDC. Stripe will facilitate these payments, ensuring merchants receive their preferred local currency to be deposited in their bank account. The service is going live initially in 34 countries.

3️⃣ Societe Generale to become the first major bank that launches a dollar-pegged stablecoin

France’s Societe Generale announced that it plans to launch a publicly tradeable, dollar-backed stablecoin. If successful, this will make Societe Generale the first major bank to enter the market of dollar-backed stablecoins. SocGen’s crypto arm, SG-FORGE, said that the stablecoin, named “USD CoinVertible” will be initially issued on Ethereum and Solana. 

In Other News

• Uber is exploring stablecoins’ potential for payments

• US Senate schedules final GENIUS stablecoin bill vote for June 17th

• Apple, X/Twitter, Airbnb, Google, Amazon and Walmart all in talks to integrate stablecoins

Stablecoin Adoption Snapshot

1️⃣ Stablecoin Supply & Growth

Stablecoin supply continues to grow unabated, with USD₮ remaining the undisputed leader in total stablecoin supply. This continues the surge in stablecoin supply that has remained unbroken since October 2024.

• Total stablecoin supply: $250.2 billion (+4.08% from 30 days ago)

• USD₮ remains dominant: 63.8% market share ($157.6 billion)

• Stablecoins now account for over 1.14% of the US M2 money supply

2️⃣ Adoption Continues to Surge

Stablecoin transaction volume has continued to soar significantly over the past two weeks, alongside a steady increase in new wallets holding stablecoins.

• $4.5 trillion in stablecoin transaction volume over past 30 days (via 1.2 billion transactions)

• 167.5 million wallets hold stablecoins (up 2.8% from 30 days ago)

• 101.7 million wallets hold Tether's stablecoin, making it the clear market leader

3️⃣ Stablecoin Liquidity by Chain

While Ethereum has regained some stablecoin market share over the past two weeks, Tron’s stablecoin activity continues to grow at a faster rate, driven predominantly by USD₮. 

• Ethereum remains dominant in terms of stablecoin supply, with 51.5%, followed by Tron at 31.7%

• Over the last fortnight, Tron has seen billions of inflows in stablecoins, increasing its dominance by just under 1%

All data and charts in the Stablecoin Adoption Snapshot are courtesy of our partner, Token Terminal. Please note that while the underlying data points are accurate, certain chart segments may appear incomplete as Token Terminal continues integrating Solana. For fully verified data sets, refer to the figures provided throughout this newsletter.

Plasma: Where Money Moves Next

Stablecoins are the next step for global finance. A new system built from the ground up that is permissionless, programmable, fast and cheap. With the use cases that stablecoins unlock, it is not a surprise that more institutions and fintechs are rapidly moving to integrate this technology. 

That’s why we’re building Plasma. As stablecoins transition from crypto-native assets to a global money standard, they need faster, cheaper, more reliable and more programmable settlement infrastructure. Plasma is designed from the ground up for this future.

Whether you're a developer, investor, or simply watching where money moves next, Plasma is where the future is being built.

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