Let's do some math first.
How many times did you swap tokens on-chain in the past year? 10 times? 50 times? 100 times?
Each transaction resulted in an average loss of 0.5% due to slippage. Ten transactions would amount to 5%. If you traded frequently, slippage plus gas fees could eat up 10% of your principal in a year—that's not an exaggeration.
With a principal of 100,000, you could lose 10,000 in a year just from transaction costs.
What's even more disheartening is that you might not even realize you're losing this money. It's not a one-time loss, but rather a gradual, slow drain, like boiling a frog in water.
Today I want to talk about this issue and why @Plasma's recent actions might actually be addressing this problem.
The three hidden costs of on-chain transactions: How many have you experienced?
First: Gas Fees
Everyone knows this. When Ethereum was expensive, a single swap could cost tens of dollars in gas. Even with L2, it can still cost a few cents to a few dollars. Individual transactions may not seem like much, but the cumulative effect is alarming.
Second: Slippage
Many newcomers don't understand this, but it's actually more damaging than gas.
You exchange 10,000 USDT of ETH on Uniswap, and the displayed price is 3,000 USDT/ETH. You think you'll get 3.33 ETH. But after the transaction, you only get 3.28 ETH. That's a difference of 0.05 ETH, which at the time was $150.
Why? Because your buy order itself is driving up the price. The pool depth isn't enough, and you've pushed up your own transaction price.
The larger the amount, the greater the slippage. This is why large traders go to centralized exchanges—not because they like centralization, but because they simply can't afford to exchange on-chain.
Third: MEV (Being Squeezed by Bots)
This is even more insidious. You initiate a transaction, but before it's even recorded on-chain, a bot has already seen it. It buys before your transaction, pushing up the price, and then sells after your transaction is completed, profiting from the difference.
You think you're trading with the market, but you're actually giving money to bots.
These three factors combined mean an active DeFi user could lose 5%-15% of their principal in a year—no joke.
How does Plasma + NEAR Intents solve these problems?
Plasma just announced its integration with NEAR Intents, which deserves a closer look.
NEAR Intents is an "intent-based trading" system. You don't need to worry about how the transaction is executed; you simply say, "I want to exchange A for B." Then a group of professional market makers (Solver) compete to execute your transaction, and whoever offers the best price wins.
What do these Solver have? CEX depth, OTC channels, their own inventory, cross-chain liquidity… they can find you the best price in the entire market.
Comparing traditional DEXs and the Intent model:
Now that Plasma has integrated into this system, it means:
Zero transaction fees (Plasma's existing advantage)
Trading prices are close to CEX prices (brought by NEAR Intents)
Support for cross-chain exchange of 125+ assets
Think about it, previously, when trading stablecoins on-chain, you were either hurt by gas fees, slippage, or traps. Now, Plasma is trying to protect you from all three.
What role does $XPL play in this system?
Some people ask: Plasma focuses on zero fees, so what's the use of XPL?
That's a good question. Simple USDT transfers don't require XPL; Plasma pays the gas for you through the Paymaster mechanism. But complex operations still require it:
Interacting with DeFi protocols (deposits, lending, mining)
Deploying smart contracts
Participating in governance voting
Validator staking
More importantly, Plasma's fee mechanism is the EIP-1559 model—a portion of the transaction fees is burned. The more users and the more active the transactions, the more XPL is burned.
If transaction volume truly increases after NEAR Intents integration, it will be a double benefit for XPL:
More on-chain activity = More Gas consumption
More Gas consumption = More XPL burning
Of course, all of this is predicated on the ecosystem actually developing. We're still in the early stages, so we can't be blindly optimistic, but the logic is sound.
How should retail investors view this?
Here are a few dimensions to consider:
Observe changes in transaction volume. Has Plasma's on-chain transaction volume increased significantly after NEAR Intents integration? This is the most direct verification indicator.
Observe developer activity. Have any new DEXs or aggregators chosen to build on Plasma? Developers' actions speak louder than words.
Observe large-scale investor behavior. Have there been more large on-chain transactions? If large investors are willing to make large exchanges on Plasma, it indicates that liquidity is indeed sufficient.
Compare with competitors. Sui, Starknet, and Tron have all integrated with NEAR Intents. Can Plasma differentiate itself in the stablecoin niche?
My personal assessment: This integration is a crucial step for Plasma in upgrading from a "transfer chain" to a "stablecoin financial infrastructure." With the direction correct, the rest is just execution and time.
Worth keeping an eye on.
What do you think? Let's discuss in the comments.
#Plasma
