Plasma founder Paul Faecks has denied insider selling accusations after the project's native XPL token lost more than half its value over the weekend. Faecks rejected speculation on Thursday that the team dumped tokens, emphasizing that investor and team allocations remain locked for three years with a one-year cliff.
“No team members have sold any XPL,” Faecks stated. Plasma launched its mainnet beta alongside the native token on Sept. 25. The layer‑1 blockchain targets faster and cheaper stablecoin payments through its network infrastructure.
XPL spiked to nearly $1.70 on Sunday following the launch before tumbling to $0.83 by Wednesday. The decline erased more than 50% of the token's value within days of trading. Community members suspected the team engaged in time‑weighted average price (TWAP) selling, an algorithmic strategy that breaks large orders into smaller chunks executed at regular intervals.
Independent blockchain sleuth ManaMoon identified movements from the Plasma team vault that raised questions. The analyst reported the wallet sent over 600 million XPL tokens to exchanges in the days leading up to the mainnet launch. ManaMoon suggested someone executed TWAP selling in volumes that overwhelmed retail buying demand.
On‑chain data showed approximately 250 million XPL moved to exchanges, 120 million to Bitfinex, and 260 million to other centralized platforms. Community member crypto_popseye blamed the team and algorithmic trading firm Wintermute for the price collapse, calling for the project's failure.
The Plasma team denied any relationship with Wintermute and stated they possess the same public information about the firm’s XPL ownership. “We have not engaged Wintermute as a market maker and have never contracted with Wintermute for any of their services,” Faecks said in response to the allegations.
After Faecks’ statement, crypto_popseye challenged the wording and suggested it left unclear the status of “ecosystem and growth” tokens. The community member accused the founder of crafting language that technically ruled out team sales while avoiding discussion of other token categories that may have been liquidated.
XPL serves as the native token for Plasma’s network, facilitating transaction settlement, staking rewards for validators, and ecosystem incentives. During the July 17 public sale, 10% of the 10 billion token supply was distributed to deposit campaign participants. Tokens purchased by non‑U.S. buyers unlocked at mainnet beta launch, while U.S. investor purchases face a 12‑month lockup ending July 2026.
Plasma allocated 40% of total supply, or 4 billion tokens, for ecosystem and growth purposes. Of this amount, 800 million unlocked immediately at mainnet beta to fund liquidity, DeFi incentives, and exchange integrations. The remaining 3.2 billion tokens release monthly over three years, reaching full unlock by the third mainnet beta anniversary in September 2028.