Which deterministic rule prevents double-spending of bridged stablecoins on Plasma during worst-case Bitcoin reorgs without freezing withdrawals?
Yesterday I was standing in a bank queue, staring at a tiny LED board that kept flashing “System Updating.” The teller wouldn’t confirm my balance.
She said transactions from “yesterday evening” were still under review. My money was technically there. But not really. It existed in this awkward maybe-state.
What felt wrong wasn’t the delay. It was the ambiguity. I couldn’t tell whether the system was protecting me or protecting itself.
It made me think about what I call “shadow timestamps” — moments when value exists in two overlapping versions of reality, and we just hope they collapse cleanly.
Now apply that to bridged stablecoins during a deep Bitcoin reorg. If two histories briefly compete, which deterministic rule decides the one true spend — without freezing everyone’s withdrawals?
That’s the tension I keep circling around with XPL on Plasma. Not speed. Not fees. Just this: what exact rule kills the shadow timestamp before it becomes a double spend?
Maybe the hard part isn’t scaling. Maybe it’s deciding which past gets to survive.
