On the evening of December 8, the highly anticipated stablecoin-native Layer 1 blockchain, Stable, officially launched its mainnet, coinciding with its token generation event.
Backed by Bitfinex and Tether, this project has attracted significant attention since its announcement, primarily because it allows users to pay all network fees using USDT.
Currently, Gate has confirmed the listing of STABLE spot trading and, together with the project team, has kicked off an ecosystem week featuring a total of 30,000,000 STABLE. The event includes Launchpool, Candydrop, trading competitions, and more.
01 Project Positioning
At 13:00 UTC on December 8, Stable’s mainnet officially went live. As a Layer 1 blockchain focused on stablecoin infrastructure, its core innovation is using USDT as the native gas fee.
This approach disrupts the traditional economic model of public blockchains. On platforms like Ethereum and Solana, users must hold native tokens such as ETH or SOL to pay transaction fees.
Stable, on the other hand, lets users pay all fees directly with USDT, aiming to deliver a truly frictionless experience.
The project claims to offer sub-second finality and peer-to-peer transfers without gas fees. Sub-second finality means transaction confirmations take just 0.5 to 1 second—much faster than Ethereum’s 12 seconds.
No gas fees means users can transfer funds directly to each other without incurring any costs.
02 Technical Design
Stable’s technical architecture is built to address key pain points in stablecoin payments. It adopts what it describes as a revolutionary economic model for stablecoin transactions.
Unlike most public chains, all transfers, payments, and trades on Stable are settled in USDT. The network’s native token, STABLE, is not used for gas fees but instead coordinates incentives between developers and ecosystem participants.
STABLE’s primary functions are governance and staking. Holders can stake their tokens to become validators, help secure the network, and vote via the DAO to influence protocol upgrades.
Additionally, STABLE is used for ecosystem incentives, such as liquidity mining or cross-chain bridge rewards.
The project team claims this separation can attract institutional capital, as USDT offers much greater stability than volatile governance tokens.
03 Market Activities
Ahead of the mainnet launch, Gate announced that Stable spot trading would go live at 13:00 UTC on December 8, 2025. At the same time, Gate and Stable jointly launched the large-scale "STABLE Ecosystem Week."
According to the official announcement, the ecosystem week features multiple participation opportunities, with a total prize pool of 30,000,000 STABLE.
Events include Gate Launchpool, where users can stake to share 4,000,000 STABLE; Candydrop Issue 120, where users complete trading tasks to share a 4,000,000 STABLE super airdrop.
Gate Wallet BountyDrop has just launched a Stable airdrop project, offering 8,000,000 STABLE; Gate Earn has started a Stable campaign, allowing users to participate in financial products and share 8,000,000 STABLE in rewards.
Stable contract trading benefits are also coming soon, with a total prize pool of 6,000,000 STABLE.
04 Controversies and Attention
Before the mainnet launch, Stable faced considerable controversy over its pre-deposit campaigns. Similar to Plasma, Stable held two rounds of pre-deposits before going live.
The first round began in late October, with a cap of $825 million. The quota was filled within minutes of the announcement.
Community members raised concerns about "insider" activity, as the top-ranking wallet deposited hundreds of millions of USDT 23 minutes before deposits officially opened.
The project team did not respond directly, but launched a second pre-deposit round on November 6, with a cap of $500 million.
However, Stable underestimated market enthusiasm. When the second round opened, heavy traffic slowed the website, and KYC verification times ranged from several days to a week.
In the end, the second round saw total deposits of about $1.8 billion, with around 26,000 participating wallets. Across both rounds, total pre-deposits reached $1.325 billion.
05 Market Expectations
Market expectations for Stable’s future are mixed. At the end of July, Stable announced the completion of a $28 million seed round led by Bitfinex and Hack VC, valuing the project at approximately $300 million.
By comparison, Plasma’s current market cap stands at $3.3 billion, with a fully diluted valuation of $16.75 billion.
Polymarket data suggests there’s an 85% chance Stable’s fully diluted valuation will exceed $20 billion on launch day. Using a conservative $20 billion estimate, the corresponding price for STABLE would be $0.02.
CEX perpetual contract markets are even more optimistic. As of December 9, Gate platform data shows STABLE’s latest price at $0.0155.
Some optimistic observers believe the stablecoin narrative, Bitfinex’s backing, and Plasma’s boom-and-bust history could mean Stable enjoys initial hype and price momentum.
However, bearish voices are louder: with gas fees not paid in STABLE, limited token utility, and the market entering a correction phase with tightening liquidity, its price could quickly decline.
