everyone talks about Plasma's low fees but nobody talks about what you're actually paying
The pitch sounds great:
near-zero gas fees, fractions of a cent per transaction, way cheaper than Ethereum's $5-50 fees
finaly, a chain where you're not bleeding money on every swap
but here's what they don't tell you:
you're not paying gas fees, you're paying through inflation
Ethereum: $10 gas fee → goes to validators → no inflation needed → your ETH holdings unchanged
Plasma: $0.001 gas fee → gets burned → validators paid via inflation → yur XPL holdings diluted ~3% annually
math that matters:
if you make 100 transactions a year on Ethereum at $10 each = $1,000 in visible costs
if you hold $10,000 in XPL and it inflates 3% = $300 in invisible costs
plus you still pay the tiny gas fees that get burned
so who's actually cheaper? depeds entirely on your usage pattern
high volume users might prefer Plasma:
if you're making 1,000+ transactions yearly, Ethereum gas would destroy you
Plasma's model makes more sense - pay through holding dilution instead of per-transaction
low-volume holders get wrecked:
if you make 10 transactions a year but hold XPL long-term, you're paying inflation without benefiting from low fees
you'd be better off paying Ethereum's gas and holding deflationary ETH
the tokenomics sleight of hand:
"zero fee" makes people forget about inflation
burning fees sounds deflationary until you realize inflation exceds burns unless usage is extremely high
target is ~3% net inflation - that's your real "gas fee" as a holder
Compare to transparent fee markets:
Base: clear fees, you know exactly what you're paying
Solana: cheap fees funded by inflation, but they're upfront about it
Plasma: markets itself on low fees while hiding the inflation cost
Here is my issue:
I don't mind inflation-funded models if they're honest about it
but calling it "low fee" when holders are paying via dilution feels misleading
it's not cheaper, it's just different accounting
maybe it works for heavy users, but for holders? you're paying the gas fees of everyone else
what's your usage pattern - are you better off with visible fees or hidden inflation?
#Plasma #Tokenomics @Plasma $XPL
