Plasma as a Precursor to Modular Blockchains
Plasma was one of the first to show that blockchains don’t have to do everything in one place. Instead, it pushed most of the work off-chain and left settlement and disputes to Ethereum. That move split up the workload and set the stage for how we think about blockchains today, breaking things down into separate layers for execution, data availability and settlement. Plasma didn’t have its own data availability layer, sure, but its big idea was clear: if you want blockchains to scale, you have to let different layers focus on what they do best. That mindset paved the way for modern rollups, appchains, and the modular Layer-2 solutions we see now.