$500 million raised, was that fair?

XPL token Plasma’s highly anticipated ICO (initial coin offering) has closed its safe after raising $500 million from more than 1,100 depositors.

The event presents a spectacular display of capital development and the gas war, raising concerns among community members.

Is Plasma ICO raising $500 million amid a whale frenzy and expecting to unlock $1-200 million?

The token has not yet been launched, but expectations are already rising that the final unlock could result in between $1 billion and $2 billion.

“We’ve reached a $500 million deposit cap. We’re excited to see over 1,100 wallets taking part, and the median deposit amount is $35,000.”

But deeper stories are emerging amid headlines and hype. The concerns extend from whale control and insider access to the growing sense that token launches are becoming a gated event for the crypto elite.

The numbers show that only a handful of wallets account for independent allocations. More specifically, the top three contributors alone have collectively expanded over $100 million.

Perhaps more shockingly, one user reportedly paid 39 ETH (approximately $104,871 at the current $2,689 rate) on gas prices, securing a $10 million USDC allocation.

“This guy spent 100k (230,000 GWEI) getting deposits for plasma,” writes Monamoon, founder of the Duck Frens NFT Project.

This indicates the intensity of the FOMO and the hope that participants were willing to go to get access early. Nevertheless, the frenzy came at a reputational cost. Many call the launch something other than fair as the whales are gaining a share of the lion.

“…That’s an obvious skip to the community… only 100 wallets of $50 million each… these wallets alone will give you 100 times the oversubscription. Unfortunately, despite the very attractive prices, it’s not a fair launch.”

Retail users were effectively pushed to the bystanders despite providing just 10% of the total XPL token supply of public sales at a $500 million FDV (Full Dilution Evaluation). They will probably only come later, at 10-16 times the price.

Critics Slam Plasma’s technology and Tokenomics-ICO were lockouts, not launches

This sharp disparity is dubbed “whale sales” rather than a release that is accessible to the wider community. Plus, there may be more to play than just a bad optic. Crypto Trader Hanzo raised a serious red flag, suggesting the possibility of coordinated insider actions.

Hanzo calls over 100 wallets that receive 48 million USDC before the tokens are launched, highlighting that some of these wallets have approved the token interaction before the token contract was made public.

“That means insiders had early access to mint and trade. This wasn’t a surprise launch. It was a private party. Retail was not invited,” he insisted.

The mechanism of pay increases is also raising questions. Hosted on sonar/echo, it was called “coin list for this cycle,” and the time-weighted share of vault deposits determined the deposition period of the plasma.

Participants were required to lock the stubcoin at Ethereum with a minimum of 40 days of lockup. However, as the deposit cap was suddenly raised to $500 million and filled almost instantly, many users wondered whether this was meant to be an open opportunity.

Even the technology that supports plasma is not spared scrutiny. We found that users have broken the architecture of the chain and are missing.

“Plasma is another L1 chain. It uses a “classic” PBFT consensus layer and has a range of proofs…and uses Bitcoin as “payment” simply by exposing the differences in state…it’s very similar to many Alt-L1 EVM forks…it surfs in Bitcoin’s “sidechain” marketing campaign and has no influence.

In his view, Plasma’s use of influencer and Bitcoin branding is more of a marketing vener than a technical substance.

Still, not everyone agrees. Zaheer of Splitcapital praised the distribution, noting the distribution of a wide owner, with over 1,100 wallets and one wallet holding $50 million.

“Everything was considered a crazy appropriate distribution of $500 million plasma holders of total deposits, with fewer people here and only one $50 million entity in their wallet.

According to Zaheer, this contrasts with the typical whale-dominated ICO, suggesting a more comprehensive allocation strategy.

Plasma’s ICOs act as a mirror for today’s market mechanics, often more than innovation and accessibility, with speed, size and some connections.

The plasma becomes the foundation chain or another noteworthy narrative depends on the number of unlocked and how its ecosystem becomes fair beyond ICO hype.