The short version
- XPL price: Plasma’s token trades at $0.0729, down 34% since September 24 while Bitcoin lost under 5%, as the September 25 cliff and today’s tranche lifted the supply in circulation 71% to 4.76 billion XPL.
- From today, 227.8 million XPL (about $16.6 million) unlocks on the 25th of every month until September 2028, while stablecoins on Plasma are down 78% from their peak to $1.39 billion and the chain earned $13,581 in fees in 30 days.
- The crew is watching whether XPL holds $0.072 into the next unlock on November 25; a daily close below it opens the way to the $0.0601 all-time low.
The XPL price has spent a month doing the one thing a fresh token unlock tends to do: going down. Plasma XPL trades at $0.0729 at the time of writing, 34% below where it stood the day before the September 25 cliff and 95.7% below its $1.68 record from September 2025.
Bitcoin lost under 5% over the same month. So this isn’t the market dragging XPL lower. It’s the supply. Since September 24, the XPL in circulation has gone from 2.78 billion to 4.76 billion, and today the first of 24 monthly team and investor tranches landed on top. Who is selling, how much more is coming, and is anyone using the chain underneath it?
A year ago, when XPL halved in its first week, Plasma’s founder answered the dumping rumors by pointing to the lock. That lock has now run out:
We’ve seen a number of rumors circulating since the launch of XPL and want to set the record straight.
1/ No team members have sold any XPL. All investor and team XPL is locked for 3 years with a 1 year cliff.
2/ Of our team of ~50, three spent time at Blur or Blast. Our team
Why Is the XPL Price Falling?
Because the supply of XPL grew 71% in a month while demand for the chain shrank. On September 25, one year after Plasma’s mainnet beta, the first third of the team and investor allocations unlocked at once: 833 million XPL each, plus that month’s ecosystem tranche, about 1.76 billion XPL in one day.
Plasma’s tokenomics page sets out the rest. Team and investors each hold 25% of the 10 billion supply. After the one-year cliff, their remaining two-thirds unlock monthly over two more years. The ecosystem fund, 40% of supply, has been releasing a slice every month since launch.
The odd part is what came first. XPL rallied into the cliff, from $0.081 on September 16 to a $0.1256 high on the day itself, up 55% in nine days. It has fallen 42% from that high since, in a slow slide with no single crash day.
The market cap tells you where the pressure went. It sits at $347 million now, higher than the $308 million of September 24. Buyers did take the new coins. They just paid a lot less for each one, which is what dilution looks like on a chart.
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How Much XPL Unlocks From Now On?
From today, 227.8 million XPL unlocks on the 25th of every month until September 2028, about $16.6 million at today’s price. That is 2.6 times the monthly flow XPL had until August, when only the ecosystem fund was unlocking.
| Every 25th, Oct 2026 to Sept 2028 | XPL a month |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem and growth | 88.9 million |
| Team | 69.4 million |
| Investors | 69.4 million |
| Total | 227.8 million |
Today’s Plasma unlock is about 5% of the 4.53 billion that circulated yesterday. Twelve more of them put roughly 7.5 billion XPL in circulation by October 2027, 75% of the total, so holders face another 2.7 billion coins in the next year.
Unlocked doesn’t mean sold, and nobody has to sell on the day. But the incentive is there: Plasma’s public sale in July 2025 priced XPL at $0.05, a $500 million valuation for the full supply, so even at $0.073 buyers from that round sit on a gain. The market isn’t waiting to find out who takes it.
DISCOVER: Market Cap, Supply and Why “Cheap” Coins Aren’t Cheap
Is Anyone Using Plasma?
Fewer people than at launch. Plasma was built as a chain for stablecoins, and the stablecoins on it peaked at $6.35 billion on October 9, 2025, two weeks after mainnet. DefiLlama counts $1.39 billion today, 78% less. Total value locked in its apps fell from $5.47 billion to $566 million over the same year.
The fee side is thinner still. Plasma’s docs say burned base fees should offset new XPL “as usage grows.” Over the last 30 days the whole chain earned $13,581 in fees, by DefiLlama’s count. One month of unlocks is worth about 1,200 times that.
That isn’t a flaw on its own. Free stablecoin transfers are the product, and they were never going to throw off big fees. But it leaves XPL with no buyer from the chain itself, so every unlocked coin has to find a buyer in the market, and right now that buyer wants a discount.
XPL Price Analysis: Can $0.072 Hold?
For the XPL price, $0.072 is the level that matters this week. XPL bounced from that area in late July and August, and Saturday’s low of $0.0707 already dipped under it.
Above, the 50-day EMA at $0.0856 and resistance at $0.0879 turned XPL back in mid-October. The 200-day EMA is far off at $0.110, still sloping down, so the bigger trend points lower.
In the bull case, a daily close back above $0.0879 puts XPL over the 50-day EMA and shows the market has absorbed the first monthly tranche.
In the base case, XPL drifts between $0.072 and $0.088 until the next unlock on November 25.
In the bear case, a daily close below $0.072 opens the way to $0.0601, the all-time low from June 10.
EXPLORE: HYPE Unlock on November 6: $765M on Paper. Can Buybacks Absorb It?
The calendar is the easy part to read: 23 more tranches of 227.8 million XPL, one every 25th. The harder part is the other side of the trade. If stablecoins start flowing back onto Plasma, the unlocks have something to sell into. If they don’t, November 25 looks a lot like today.
