Plasma Ecological Map 1: Wallets, Payments, Merchant Tools - Who is the Most Critical?
Many people talk about ecosystems and like to count 'how many protocols there are', but for payment-oriented projects like Plasma, the key to the ecosystem is not the number of protocols, but who can truly push stablecoins into everyday use. If I were to prioritize, I would divide the ecosystem into three layers: entry layer, payment layer, and merchant layer. The core of the entry layer is the wallet and account experience — it determines whether a newcomer can succeed the first time and avoid pitfalls. Without a sufficiently smooth entry, even the richest DeFi is only for old players.
The second layer includes payment tools and development components: payment SDKs, collection components, callback notifications, order state machines, subscription debits; these may sound 'not so sexy', but they are the keys to enabling application parties to integrate quickly and replicate and expand payment scenarios. The third layer consists of merchant tools: reconciliation, reports, settlements, refunds, profit sharing, and risk control. Merchants will not connect just because your chain is fast; what they want is 'can it save people, save money, and save trouble'. Once merchant tools are operational, stablecoin payments will transition from 'user self-indulgence' to 'commercial closed loop'.
So when you ask me who is the most critical? The answer is: in the early stages, prioritize whether wallets and payment tools can eliminate barriers, and in the mid-term, see if merchant tools can turn usage into a scalable business. If Plasma's ecological map can grow along this path, its moat will not rely on promotion, but on real usage habits and merchant networks.
