Author: Frank, PANews
The Plasma project's token, XPL, garnered widespread market attention following its launch on the evening of September 25th. Unlike previous crypto airdrops, which often targeted hundreds of thousands of addresses, Plasma adopted a starkly different, more elitist strategy. Through a high-threshold public presale and targeted, high-value airdrops, Plasma created a remarkable wealth effect for a small number of early adopters.
This model not only enabled the project to achieve strong price performance and positive community buzz during its initial launch, but also prompted a profound industry reflection on future airdrop mechanisms: Saying goodbye to "fleecing gangs" and Sybil attacks, and shifting towards rewarding real capital and deep contributions—will this become the new paradigm? PANews takes an in-depth look at XPL's token acquisition methods, its on-chain performance, and the potential industry implications. According to PANews' investigation, there are three ways for users to obtain tokens from the Plasma TGE. The first is to participate in the July public presale, which offered a share of 1 billion XPL at a cost of $0.05. The second is an airdrop similar to the Sunshine Airdrop, which requires small depositors who have completed Sonar (by Echo) verification and participated in the sale. There is also an unknown airdrop, which received tokens from 178 addresses, with allocations ranging from 1,250 to 45,000 XPL, for a total of approximately 3.3 million XPL. Public Offering Frenzy: A Fortune Feast Tailored for Whales According to public offering data, a total of 3,021 addresses received tokens, totaling approximately 987 million tokens, representing 98.7% of the total number of tokens claimed. A notable feature of the XPL public offering is its preponderance of large investors, with very few retail investors. The average number of tokens claimed by each address during the public offering was 670,000. Based on the peak post-issuance price of $1.45, these addresses received an average of $970,000, nearly reaching $1 million per address. Of these, 166 addresses claimed over one million tokens, collectively receiving 796 million tokens, representing 80% of the total public offering. Eighteen addresses received over 10 million tokens, collectively claiming over 377 million tokens, representing over 37% of the total. The highest single address received 54.08 million tokens, valued at approximately $78.41 million at the peak price.
There are approximately 883 addresses that have claimed less than 1,000 tokens, and these addresses have only received a total of approximately 246,000 tokens.
Based on the amount of on-chain investment in the early stages, the cost price of this public offering was US$0.05 per token, and it rose to a high of US$1.45, with a maximum increase of approximately 29 times. This has also allowed many KOLs to make a lot of money. Take KOL CBB as an example. He was the third-ranked address in this round of claims, with an initial investment of approximately US$1.71 million. In the end, he received more than 34 million tokens with a maximum value of US$49.63 million, and a profit of US$47.92 million. As of September 26, CBB had transferred approximately 74.6% of the tokens. Another example is HongKongDoll, whose initial investment was $50,000, and whose returns reached a maximum of $1.35 million. As of September 26th, all XPL tokens in her on-chain address had been transferred. For these large investors, the XPL public offering seemed like an airdrop with a high barrier to entry. Consequently, when influencers (KOLs) shared their token holdings on social media, they were met with widespread praise and envious glances from the community. Targeted Airdrops: "Targeted Gifts Under the Sunshine" In addition to the public offering, Plasma also arranged two airdrops. One was a partnership with Binance to distribute 100 million tokens through subscriptions to Plasma USDT regular products. The other was a direct on-chain airdrop to users who participated in early on-chain deposits. Judging by the data, the XPL airdrop amount was not large. The total amount allocated to users was 25 million tokens, with a maximum value of approximately $36.25 million. However, since each user received 9,304 tokens, the maximum value exceeded $13,000. Therefore, any recipient of the airdrop considered it a significant income. A total of 2,687 addresses received the on-chain airdrop, 2,603 of which also participated in the XPL public presale. In other words, the XPL airdrop is essentially another bonus for early public offering users. Furthermore, many on social media have discussed that depositing $1 on Plasma and receiving 9,304 tokens is the most cost-effective airdrop ever. Is this true? Data indicates that some users, with a minimum deposit of $0.1, ultimately received 9,304 tokens. This represents a 134,000x return, potentially even higher than MEME, the coin with the most hype and the highest price-to-earnings ratio. After the public offering and airdrop, XPL's price didn't experience a concentrated sell-off and a decline. Instead, it bucked the trend and rose, leaving a deep impression on the market. Many users believe this rise is due to the fact that the public offering and airdrop primarily targeted large investors, who tend to be more patient than retail investors. However, actual data shows that by the afternoon of September 26th, 71.9% of claimed tokens on-chain had been transferred. These tokens may have been transferred to exchanges, while some were also consolidated into new wallets. Thirty-seven wallet addresses not only did not reduce their holdings but actually increased them, with a total increase of over 2.2 million tokens. 618 addresses (approximately 18.8%) have remained unchanged and have not made any token transfers. Mysterious Distribution and Market Implications: KOL "Red Envelopes" and the New Airdrop Paradigm Compared to previous mainstream interactive airdrops, Plasma's alternative airdrop solution has indeed achieved positive results. Although the number of airdrop recipients has been significantly reduced compared to previous projects, from millions to thousands, the airdrop amount received by each address has reached a higher level. Without the need for interaction, there's no room for those who interact frequently but don't contribute much, feeling unfair. Furthermore, since airdrop recipients generally receive a share of the public offering, their profit margin far exceeds the airdrop amount. For them, the airdrop amount is more like a commemorative prize, and the amount isn't a core interest. Consequently, most comments on social media are about sharing their purchases and regretting not being able to participate. Complaints are almost nonexistent. Of the various airdrop interaction projects PANews has previously analyzed, perhaps only Hyperliquid's situation is comparable. Looking back at the airdrop's share, Plasma officials contributed approximately 128 million tokens, with an airdrop value of approximately $185.6 million. This is significantly less than Magic Eden, Berachain, and Hyperliquiquid. However, the gains were greater in terms of reputation and token performance. This also seems to offer a new approach for subsequent TGE projects: instead of requiring free interaction as a condition for airdrops, a certain investment threshold is set as the airdrop criteria. This not only solves the problem of Sybils who rely on interaction to profit, but also achieves higher returns for individual addresses. While the airdrop scale and interaction data may not be as impressive, it will garner more positive feedback in terms of community reputation and market performance. Perhaps this generous airdrop and strategic planning are the result of the Plasma team's introspection after the painful experience of airdrops, as they originated from Blast. After all, Blast relied on a complex airdrop strategy to stir the market, only to quickly fail. In short, Plasma's token launch was a carefully planned and successful experiment that deviated from the mainstream airdrop model. By concentrating the stakes in a small number of large capital whales and core contributors, it not only effectively avoided Sybil attacks and concentrated selling pressure after launch, but also gained excellent community reputation and market attention through its astonishing wealth effect. Although this "favoring the rich over the poor" model is controversial in terms of fairness, its strong effectiveness in the early stages of the project has undoubtedly provided the entire industry with a new idea worthy of deep thought. Future airdrops may no longer be free lunches, but rather a crowning of the value of real capital and deep participation.
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