In 2025, the stablecoin track is booming, with good news coming one after another. However, the project $XPL, focused on the stablecoin settlement layer, is moving against the trend.

Do you remember that period? This project was extremely popular, with TVL rapidly jumping from $2 billion to $5.5 billion, and it was highly anticipated by the industry, regarded as a benchmark for the next generation of DeFi infrastructure. The market once offered plenty of imagination.

But now, the story has taken a sudden turn. The token price has been declining from its all-time high, with a drop of over 90%. From a star project to a footnote, $XPL's experience also reflects the market reality—skyrocketing TVL and booming fundraising can't withstand the test of actual application implementation. While stablecoins have been around for years, the projects are in decline. This mismatch is worth pondering.