Perps are Ethereum’s missing foundation.

A critical gap in Ethereum’s DeFi stack is about to be filled, unlocking massive institutional capital, improving capital efficiency and reunifying years’ worth of fragmented liquidity. 

The Trillion-Dollar Market Hiding in Plain Sight

Picture the following: You’re looking at the world’s most sophisticated financial ecosystem. It has lending protocols that boast $14.6 billion in liquidity, decentralized exchanges processing billions in weekly volume, and yield strategies that automatically optimize across multiple protocols. It has everything a modern trader needs.

Everything except the one primitive that generates 78% of all crypto trading volume.

Welcome to Ethereum DeFi’s missing foundation: perpetual futures.

While traditional finance has built a $600+ trillion derivatives market, with interest rate derivatives alone commanding $530 trillion in notional outstanding — Ethereum’s Layer 1 has been running a sophisticated financial system with one hand tied behind its back.

The numbers tell a startling story:

• Traditional derivatives: $600+ trillion notional outstanding.
• Crypto derivatives: $2-5 trillion monthly volume (during active periods).

And Ethereum’s share? Nearly zero, despite hosting a staggering 63% of all DeFi’s TVL.

This isn’t just a missing feature. It’s the missing foundation that everything else is built upon. 

The Great DeFi Exodus: Follow the Volume

Remember when Ethereum was supposed to be the settlement layer for all of DeFi? That vision started cracking when users needed what L1 couldn’t provide: efficient leverage, low-latency systems, and shorting.

The migration was swift and brutal:

GMX on Arbitrum racked up $300 billion in cumulative volume, 800,000+ traders. Not a single trade was posted on Ethereum Mainnet.

Hyperliquid has generated $1.57 trillion in cumulative volume on its dedicated L1, which was purpose-built from scratch because existing chains couldn’t handle the demand.

dYdX began on Ethereum but migrated to StarkEx L2 and then built its own Cosmos chain. To this day, dYdX processes roughly $4 billion in weekly volume with 1.3 million monthly users – all outside Ethereum’s ecosystem.

Here’s the kicker: These platforms didn’t just steal users. They stole the entire economic model that was supposed to power DeFi’s next phase.

Analysts predict that funding yields from perpetuals will partly cannibalize lending protocols’ businesses as they offer leverage with dramatically lower capital requirements. While Aave requires 150%+ collateralization for leverage, perpetuals can offer 5x exposure with just 20% margin.

Untapped Liquidity: Ethereum’s $153 Billion Advantage

Here’s where the numbers get really interesting.

Ethereum Mainnet currently hosts over $153 billion in stablecoin market cap – the deepest, most liquid pool of trading capital in crypto. But this massive liquidity pool has been sitting almost completely idle when it comes to derivatives trading.

Compare this to today’s fragmented alternatives. Arbitrum’s entire DeFi ecosystem commands a ~$3 billion TVL, while all of the 73 total L2s combined amount to a small fraction of Mainnet’s stablecoin depth. 

When Synthetix launches Mainnet, it will have immediate and direct access to more than 40x the available liquidity of any L2 alternative. This enables the following:

• Multi-collateral liquidations: with deep liquidity across multiple high-quality assets.
• Instant settlement to Mainnet: for complex strategies without bridge delays.
• Atomic composability: between lending, trading, and derivatives.
• Institutional-grade infrastructure: with Ethereum’s security guarantees

The Composability Cambrian Explosion

Every DeFi primitive becomes exponentially more powerful when it can compose with derivatives. Without Mainnet perps, Ethereum has been running a financial system where you can lend, borrow, and trade – but not efficiently hedge.

So what becomes possible with native L1 perps? 

• Hedged Liquidity Provision: Earn Uniswap trading fees without price exposure by shorting your LP position.
• Delta-Neutral Vaults: Combine yield farming with derivative hedging for stablecoin-like returns.
• Cross-Protocol Strategies: Use diverse collateral (including yield-bearing assets like wstETH) as margin for perpetual positions, with instant liquidation into deep DEX liquidity.
• Institutional-Grade Risk Management: Professional hedging and leverage strategies on the most secure chain.

The fragmentation forced by L1’s perpetuals gap meant these strategies were either impossible or required complex cross-chain coordination. 

Why Previous L1 Attempts Failed

Early attempts at Ethereum perpetuals trading faced crippling infrastructure constraints and a brutal economic reality. 

dYdX started on Mainnet but couldn’t scale order-book trading. Futureswap’s token plummeted  99.99% in 9 months after failing to scale operations. MCDEX attempted to build on the L1 but quickly migrated to Arbitrum for V3.

The technical constraints were real: high gas costs, slow block times, and MEV exploitation made derivatives trading uneconomical.

Fast-forward to September 2025, and Ethereum’s infrastructure has evolved dramatically:

EIP-4844 has massively reduced data availability costs. Higher gas limits have improved transaction throughput. Hybrid architectures enable off-chain matching with on-chain settlement and a ~90% overall improvement in MEV protection through sophisticated order handling.

Most importantly, the market has proven the demand exists and validated multiple technical approaches.

The Synthetix Catalyst: Built for Ethereum’s Strengths

Synthetix Mainnet isn’t just another perp platform. It’s the first protocol architected specifically to leverage Ethereum L1’s unique advantages while solving its historical constraints.

There are two primary avenues on the Synthetix Mainnet approach, consisting of a suite of technical breakthroughs and pure timing advantage. 

The Technical Breakthroughs

• Off-chain matching for competitive price discovery, private trading functionality, and meeting high-frequency trading system performance requirements. 
• On-chain settlement: preserving composability and security.
• USDT as base settlement asset with unified multi-collateral margining.
• Five premium collateral types: USDT, sUSDe, cbBTC, WETH, and wstETH.
• SNX staking rewards with streamlined tokenomics.

The Timing Advantage

• First serious L1 perps platform since Mainnet infrastructure improvements
• Well-funded team with extensive derivatives experience
• Institutional demand for L1-secured trading infrastructure
• Market validation from L2 successes proves demand exists

The Institutional Inflection Point

Mainnet is no longer just crypto-natives and prop shops trading amongst one another. Here’s what changes the equation for institutions:

Traditional Finance sees a $600+ trillion derivatives market with professional infrastructure, established risk management frameworks, and comprehensive regulatory oversight

Today’s host of crypto derivatives products currently offer relatively fragmented liquidity across dozens of chains, extreme leverage with minimal safeguards, and, despite the warm reception of crypto assets with the new US administration, many protocols are still staring down the barrel of an uncertain regulatory future. 

Ethereum Mainnet offers a distinct and immediate solution to most of these concerns: boasting unrivaled network security, the most battle-tested blockchain infrastructure, the deepest liquidity of stablecoin pools in crypto, high composability with direct integration with established DeFi protocols, and regulatory clarity with clear, existing frameworks emerging for Ethereum-based assets.

The convergence is already happening. CME overtook Binance in Bitcoin futures open interest, and BlackRock’s IBIT ETF options reached $11 billion notional within two months.

Ethereum’s resurgence in 2025 has been driven by its focus on technical clarity with upgrades, new leadership, and growing institutional interest in its secure, composable DeFi ecosystem.

The timing for launching a perp DEX on Mainnet could not be better.

The Network Effect Multiplier

Success creates momentum.

If Synthetix Mainnet captures even 10% of current crypto derivatives volume, it would kickstart a virtuous flywheel for Ethereum, generating:

• $200-500 billion in monthly volume on Ethereum Mainnet
• Increased fee revenue for validators and protocols
• Liquidity magnetism that draws capital away from L2s and funnels it back to the L1
• Innovation catalyst for new composable strategies on the L1

But the real prize is bigger: reunifying DeFi around Ethereum’s secure foundation. 

Every protocol benefits when the ecosystem is complete. The entire Ethereum DeFi stack becomes exponentially more valuable.

Your Front-Row Seat to History

We’re witnessing a potential watershed moment in DeFi evolution. The largest, most sophisticated financial ecosystem in crypto is about to become complete.

The next few months will determine whether Ethereum reclaims its position as the comprehensive home for decentralized finance or whether the fragmented, multi-chain reality becomes permanent.

Either way, you’ll want a front-row seat.

Synthetix Mainnet isn’t just about derivatives. It’s about completing the vision of Ethereum as the world’s financial infrastructure.

Early access starts now, but this is just the beginning. Join the Synthetix community as we build the next generation of perps infrastructure on Ethereum Mainnet.

Join the conversation: discord.gg/synthetix
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If your project has team-allocated tokens, you already know the dilemma.

On one hand, those tokens are there for a reason — to pay contributors, fund operations, and keep the project alive. On the other hand, the moment you start selling them, the market reacts. Sell too much too quickly, and holders get spooked, the price dips, and sentiment takes a hit.

So what do you do?

It’s an issue almost every project faces: the same tokens that are supposed to fuel growth can also destabilize it. A one step forward, two steps back situation.

The Problem With “Just Selling”

Most teams default to one of two approaches:

• Sell a large chunk all at once and hope the market can handle it.
• Try to spread sales manually, which usually ends up messy and inefficient.

Both come with consequences. A big sell looks like a “dump” — even if it isn’t — and can immediately tank confidence. But trickling out tokens manually is inconsistent, often gas-inefficient, and still leaves holders guessing what comes next.

And if you’re running a multi-sig, it gets worse. Every sale means coordinating all the signers, every time. Slow, inefficient, and error-prone.

A Smarter Alternative

There’s a better way — one that gives projects full control over how tokens enter the market, preserves holder confidence, and strengthens the chain at the same time.

Controlled sell ranges.

Instead of unloading everything at once, projects can create a single limit order — but with a defined price range, not just one single price point. For example, $2,200 to $2,300, letting the market buy into it gradually.

100% price certainty.

The price you set is the price your tokens sell for — no slippage, no surprises.

Natural execution.

Orders fill as the market trades into them, blending with activity already happening instead of working against it.

Healthier momentum.

Sales feed liquidity and support upward movement rather than break it.

Active, not idle.

Tokens remain part of a live strategy, contributing to chain TVL instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Token distribution doesn’t have to be disruption. It can be steady, strategic market participation.

Why This Works on Carbon DeFi (and Nowhere Else)

It comes down to Carbon DeFi’s architecture. Bancor’s latest invention, Asymmetric Liquidity and Adjustable Bonding Curves, lies at the heart of Carbon DeFi. I won’t nerd out on the details here (see the Whitepaper or the invention disclosure if you want the deep dive), but the takeaway is simple:

Carbon DeFi is the only DEX where scaling in or out with Range Orders is not only possible, but completely native to the protocol.

Single-token curves

• This allows for a project to create a one-time, single sided trading strategy, supplying only their team token.

Irreversible execution

• This makes one-directional trades possible — you can scale out without being forced to scale back in no matter the market’s next move.

Price Certainty

• Makers on Carbon DeFi never experience slippage on their orders. The price they set is not an approximation or request, it’s a certainty.

Adjustable

• Teams can update parameters onchain at any time — no need to withdraw, redeposit, or start from scratch. They can add additional funds, re-use the position for future sales, and pause their strategy— on the fly, at any point in time.

Transparent

• Carbon DeFi’s activity tracker shows the activity of individual strategies: when tokens are sold, how much are sold, and exactly where the funds stand—giving communities visibility into how team allocations are handled, building confidence not destroying it.

Strategic, Responsible Distribution

Team allocations aren’t going away. They’re part of how projects fund themselves and keep building. The question is whether those tokens become a liability or a tool for long-term growth. That choice belongs to the project.

Range Orders give projects a way to ease tokens into the market responsibly:

• Protecting holders from sudden shocks
• Supporting healthier market structure
• Reinforcing trust through transparency

The Broader Bancor Mission

https://medium.com/media/60246aa222ec17de9f0f621ca8a49ac4/href

Range Orders reflect the philosophy behind Carbon DeFi and are one expression of Bancor’s broader mission: to build the foundational technologies critical to DeFi’s success.

From developing the technology underpinning the Constant Product AMM in 2017, to introducing Amplified Liquidity (what’s now known as Concentrated Liquidity) in 2020, to designing Asymmetric Liquidity and Adjustable Bonding Curves in 2022 — Bancor has consistently focused on the infrastructure that makes DeFi possible.

Range Orders are a continuation of that mission.

A Double-Edged Sword was originally published in Bancor on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Be the first to experience the future of perps

Synthetix is launching the first perp exchange on Ethereum Mainnet, and pre-deposits are now live. This is your chance to earn a spot on the Synthetix Mainnet alpha whitelist and be among the first to trade and earn Synthetix Points. Each week, 60 depositors will gain early access to the Synthetix Mainnet alpha. Find out how you can be among the first.

Deposit Early, Get Rewarded

Pre-deposits allow you to commit sUSD or sUSDe ahead of the Synthetix Mainnet launch.

• sUSD is used to fund the SLP vault, a protocol-operated liquidity pool that provides liquidity across all listed perp markets. Early sUSD depositors may choose to migrate to the SLP vault at launch.
• sUSDe is used as trading margin on Synthetix Mainnet perps. sUSDe depositors can choose to migrate their sUSDe deposits to trading margin as soon as they’re granted alpha access.

Your total deposit determines your position on the leaderboard. Each week, the top depositors receive guaranteed whitelist access, and 10 additional spots are awarded through a lottery for depositors who’ve committed at least $1,000. All pre-depositors will begin earning Synthetix Points, which will appear once the alpha launches. The more you deposit, the more points you’ll receive.

Earn Whitelist Access

Whitelist access is granted weekly to a new cohort of users:

• Top 30 sUSD depositors on the leaderboard each week receive access
• Top 20 sUSDe depositors on the leaderboard each week will receive access.
• 10 additional addresses are randomly selected from wallets that deposited at least $1,000 during that week

If you earn access, either through the leaderboard or the lottery, you retain it as long as your deposit remains in place. Any withdrawal removes your eligibility and forfeits your access. The leaderboard updates in real time and reflects the current weekly rankings.

Win the Alpha Lottery

Each Wednesday at 00:00 UTC, 10 wallets with a $1,000 minimum deposit are selected for alpha access. All eligible wallets are automatically entered each week. Each weekly lottery provides access to 10 fresh wallets, and your access is retained as long as your deposit remains.

Join us in the Synthetix Discord each Wednesday as we livestream the winners.

Even more benefits

Pre-depositing isn’t just about getting in early. It’s the only way to secure a place on the whitelist and access to all the benefits of trading during alpha:

1. Exclusive Alpha Access: Get access to Synthetix Mainnet perp trading before anyone else. Whitelisted users will be the first to test, trade, and explore features ahead of full launch.
2. Earn Points: You can be the first to earn points from early deposits, and by trading or staking on Synthetix Mainnet.
3. Convert Points to SNX: Points earned during alpha are redeemable for SNX tokens. The more points you earn, the larger your SNX reward at the end of the season.
4. Secure Top VIP Tier for 3 Months: All alpha traders start in the highest VIP tier, unlocking lower fees and premium perks. Early access gives you a cost advantage and a long-term edge.

How to Participate

1. Visit predeposit.synthetix.io
2. Connect your wallet and switch to Ethereum Mainnet
3. If you don’t already have sUSD or sUSDe, acquire it using your preferred DEX aggregator like Llamaswap
4. Choose your deposit asset, enter the amount, and click Deposit
5. Track your rank on the leaderboard, and come back each Wednesday at 00:00 UTC to see if you’ve earned a spot on the whitelist

It’s that simple. Deposit today to secure your spot on the whitelist and be part of Synthetix’s return home to Ethereum Mainnet. Whether you’re here to trade, provide liquidity, or earn early rewards, the path starts with a single deposit.

Early access starts now, but this is just the beginning. Join the Synthetix community as we build the next generation of perps infrastructure on Ethereum Mainnet.

Join the conversation: discord.gg/synthetix
Subscribe to Telegram: t.me/+v80TVt0BJN80Y2Yx
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Synthetix is done with L2s. 

With Arbitrum and Base gone, we’re now shutting down Optimism as a final farewell. By September, all remaining Synthetix functionality on Optimism will cease to exist. This marks the final step in our broader transition away from Layer 2 deployments, as we refocus all resources and development toward Synthetix Mainnet, the high-performance perp exchange built on Ethereum. 

If you are currently an SNX staker on Optimism in the 420 pool, you may remain staked, and enjoy the benefits of the Debt Jubilee. We salute our Optimism stakers and ask that you turn off the lights on your way out.

What’s Happening 

Synthetix will deprecate all remaining products on Optimism in three phases:

• August 18: Perps will enter close-only mode.
• August 25: All open perps positions will be force-closed, and margin will be airdropped to user wallets in sUSD. Users with contract or multisig wallets must open a support ticket in Discord to reclaim funds.
• August 31: All other Synthetix functionality on Optimism will be deprecated.

For the simplest experience, please exit your positions soon and bridge sUSD to Ethereum Mainnet in preparation for the next phase of Synthetix on Ethereum.

What You Should Do

Perps Traders

If you’re trading perps on Optimism, you should close your positions and withdraw before August 25. Traders who don’t close their positions will have their positions force-closed, and receive any remaining margin balance directly to their wallets. If you’re using a multisig or smart contract wallet, you will not receive an airdrop of your margin. Please open a ticket in Discord.

We encourage traders to bridge any remaining sUSD margin to Ethereum Mainnet. Once on Mainnet, sUSD can be staked, added to Curve liquidity pools, or deposited in the SLP early deposit vault to continue earning.

SNX or sUSD Holders

If you’re an SNX or sUSD holder on Optimism but not actively staking in the 420 Pool, bridge your tokens back to Mainnet using Superbridge:

https://superbridge.app/?fromChainId=10&toChainId=1

You can choose the native 7-day route with no slippage, or fast bridging with some slippage, depending on liquidity.

Once on Mainnet, you can:

• Stake SNX with no lockup to earn protocol rewards (~37% APR)
• Stake sUSD in the 420 pool to earn yield (~44% APR, locked until April 2026)
• Deposit sUSD in the SLP Early Deposit Vault for exclusive perks (coming in August)
• Provide liquidity in the sUSD/sUSDe Curve pool to earn rewards
• Hold sUSD in your Infinex account to earn yield and a chance to win prizes.

Infinex Users

If you’re using Infinex, no action is required. Your sUSD will be automatically bridged to Mainnet on your behalf, and rewards will continue.

420 Stakers on Optimism

420 stakers do not need to take any action at this time. Ensure you have the required sUSD staked to complete your Debt Jubilee.

All future development is focused on Ethereum Mainnet. Synthetix Mainnet offers a faster, simpler, and more secure perps trading experience. We invite you to make the move with us.

Join the conversation: discord.gg/synthetix
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Carbon DeFi on TAC is now available as a Safe App on TAC — with seamless auto-connection and full multisig support.

Safe wallet users on TAC can combine the power of Carbon DeFi’s trading capabilities with the trusted multisig security of Safe — made possible through a successful collaboration with Protofire.

Safe is a leading smart contract wallet platform for secure digital asset management. It offers multisignature execution, customizable permissions, and smooth integration with dapps, making it a trusted choice for teams, DAOs, and individuals. Safe wallet users on TAC can now access Carbon DeFi via safe.tac.build and manage trades without leaving their multisig environment.

Protofire — a blockchain development team known for delivering high-quality DeFi integrations — began by integrating Safe wallet solutions on TAC, with Carbon DeFi being the first to go live. Their work ensures full compatibility between Carbon DeFi and TAC’s Safe deployment, delivering a smooth user experience.

About Carbon DeFi

Carbon DeFi is an advanced onchain trading platform developed by Bancor. It offers everything an AMM does, and more — including novel trading strategies no other DEX in DeFi can natively offer. Features include fully onchain limit and range orders, recurring buy-low/sell-high trading cycles, immunity to MEV sandwich attacks, and the ability to adjust positions onchain without withdrawing funds — all designed for both individual and institutional use.

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Limit Orders — Pre-set buys or sells to execute at a specific price with 100% price certainty

Range Orders — Define a price range & automate scaling in/out

Recurring Orders — Linked buy & sell orders create a repeating ‘buy low, sell high’ trading cycle

Full-range liquidity — Trade from zero to infinity

Concentrated liquidity — Auto-compounding with custom fee tiers

Built-in solver system — Bancor’s Arb Fast Lane executes trades against chain-wide liquidity

100% onchain and native to Carbon DeFi — No third-party dependencies or risk

Synthetix is an OG DeFi protocol that launched on Ethereum Mainnet in 2018. Since inception, Synthetix has continually reinvented itself in line with changing technology and market conditions. This has included transitioning from a stablecoin to a Perps exchange and leading the Defi migration to L2’s…

It’s time for our next big move – Synthetix is coming home to Ethereum Mainnet, where our story began.

By early Q4, Synthetix will have launched the first Ethereum Mainnet settled CLOB perp exchange. A hybrid onchain-offchain architecture that allows Synthetix to overcome Ethereum Mainnet’s block latency and significant gas costs. This architecture evolved from years of experience running perps and allows Synthetix to make a unique set of trade-offs that is optimised for an L1 Perp.

• Real Ethereum L1 Asset security: Fully onchain custody, deposits and withdrawals. No Bridging. No rehypothecation.
• Composable with all Mainnet assets and DeFi apps, which have the deepest liquidity and the most TVL by far.
• Community market-making and liquidation vault. No insiders. No back room deals.
• An institutional-grade Centralised Limit Order Book (CLOB) – CEX level throughput and latency.
• Multi-collateral and cross-margin with subaccount support.
• Account data privacy – your orders and trades will not be publicly displayed.

Ethereum Mainnet Perps are a game changer

Ethereum Mainnet delivers unparalleled security, credible neutrality, and seamless composability, establishing it as the most trusted blockchain for custody and settlement. As such, it’s been able to maintain the majority of DeFi activity over the years. This feature which will enable Synthetix Perps on Mainnet to address a key challenge that even successful Layer 2 solutions face: liquidity fragmentation.

Despite the low fees and faster block times of L2s, Ethereum Mainnet continues to maintain over 50% of DeFi’s total value locked (TVL). The Synthetix CLOB on Ethereum Mainnet will be co-located with the largest and most liquid DeFi protocols (e.g., Uniswap, Curve, Aave), making integration for collateral conversions and hedging strategies simple. A perp on Mainnet will increase the capital efficiency across DeFi and is already garnering the interest of institutional players.

First some preamble

SR-2 in late 2024 marked the start of the next big Synthetix pivot. After meandering for 2 years down a fruitless path (decentralisation maxi’s and AMMs everywhere), SR-2 catalysed a significant departure from Synthetix norms. Make no mistake, the Synthetix of today is wildly different to the Synthetix class of 2022-24:

• A new crack team – 16/20 team members have joined in the last 12 months.
• OG leaders Kain and Jordan have returned – adding key strategic oversight and industry expertise.
• Full stack protocol – owning the consumer facing product massively empowers Synthetix by removing significant dependencies and improving brand positioning in the market.
• Game changing new strategy – CLOB not AMM, delegated not discretionary staking/minting, Ethereum Mainnet not L2s. 

Over the coming weeks/months as we get closer to launch, we’ll be sharing much more frequent updates, including releasing information and rationale on our key architectural decisions, core matching engine performance tests (showing 100k tps throughput and sub-50ms trade latency), deployments on testnest, our launch feature set etc. Make no mistake – this new and driven team are COOKING. 

One interesting observation from ETHcc was that so many people the team met talked about how much they wanted Synthetix to win. Synthetix has a special place in the hearts of the DeFi community, but it hasn’t delivered on an inspiring vision for the last few years, leaving many to mostly stop paying attention. We’ve acknowledged this and completed a dramatic overhaul. We are now rapidly iterating, innovating and driving to release products that will once again bring Synthetix into the forefront and mobilise our passionate community again.

Raging CLOB wars

Hyperliquid’s success in building a $13B onchain business that is a revenue generating machine was inevitably going to result in what is now dubbed ‘CLOB wars’. Hyperliquid’s primary success came from using more centralised trust assumptions, which is exactly what is required to truly deliver a high frequency trading system onchain… They just were the first to acknowledge delivering a CEX-like trading experience onchain far supersedes the importance of decentralising the complete architecture.

This has spawned a number of competitors including Bullet, Hibachi, Ambient, Lighter, GTE, Paradex, Kuru, Fuel Network, Injective, dYdX and Vertex, each of which simply offers nuanced variations and slight differentiation as they compete for market share over the next year.

Each of these competitors have consciously made a decision to operate with an offchain matching engine, or on a blockchain with a centralised sequencer. Each of these CLOB operators have staked their claim as to what matters when it comes to the spectrum of how decentralised their chain is and how much of their operations are on / offchain.

Synthetix has taken everything that it’s learned building perps engines over the last 5 years to optimise the tradeoffs required to launch a L1 Perp in the increasingly competitive CLOB wars.

Enter Synthetix

Synthetix is once again building the first perp market on Ethereum – We’re laser focused on developing a high-performance, non-custodial perpetual futures platform where it is needed the most, and where everyone has now realised they actually want it – on Ethereum Mainnet. 

Synthetix has long battled the trade-offs between product performance and toxic flow minimisation in the 4 years it’s operated a perp AMM. Whilst this proved to be the wrong battle, operating a perp for so long resulted in many important learnings that position us uniquely to deliver a robust perp CLOB, and intimately understand the spectrum of trade-offs and what is important to deliver a great blockchain based application.

A perp DEX, relative to a perp CEX, is foundationally interesting as a result of three core attributes they achieve from being onchain:

• Permissionless – Blockchain applications have low barriers to entry. Any trader with ownership of a blockchain address can access the DEX and start trading within seconds/minutes.
• Composability – The ability for multiple financial and non-financial applications to sit side by side on the same infrastructure creates opportunities and reduces friction.
• Non-custodial – users retain control of their funds via self-custodial wallets, reducing the risk of mismanagement of assets.

BUT, let’s not pretend CEXs are bad or fundamentally flawed. Perp CEXs are incredibly performant markets that offer some of the best UX in all of crypto. That’s why it’s been so difficult for DEXs to take market share. Key attributes that have resulted in CEX dominance include:

• Fast execution – centralised servers enable rapid order matching and execution, which is critical for a high frequency trading system.
• Privacy – There is a pretty good reason that all of Tradfi only offer level 2 order book data, it’s because NO ONE WANTS THEIR FINANCIAL DATA OR TRADING PERFORMANCE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE.

How is Synthetix bringing all these features together?

High-volume traders’ priorities are well-defined – they seek a swift and efficient trading experience, minimisation of bridge-related risks, access to capital rapidly, protection against being hunted, and assurance that their financial data remains confidential.

To achieve this experience, Synthetix’s CLOB will:

• Operate on Ethereum Mainnet, the most liquid and secure blockchain.
• Accept deposits in a permissionless and non-custodial manner. Assets will remain in decentralised custody (e.g. smart contracts) until settlement.
• Operate an offchain matching engine to provide CEX level execution (latency and throughput).
• Offer gas-less trading and free withdrawals (with limits).
• Only display Level 2 order book data (i.e. quantity of asset available at each price level).

But offering this is not sufficient without an attractive feature set to back it all up. Synthetix is driving to launch a perp exchange from day 1 that has all the standard features (e.g. order types, funding rates, leverage, etc), but in a DEX first will uniquely offer:

• Ethereum deposit and withdrawal contracts – no bridging, no time delays to mainnet and composability with the largest DeFi applications.
• Multi-collateral support, including:
  • sUSDe – Imagine capturing Ethena’s returns (currently 12% APY) whilst using stablecoins as collateral for perp trading.
  • cbBTC – Never sell your Bitcoin!
  • wstETH – ETH collateralised trading whilst earning yield, where are my basis tradooors?!
• Subaccount support to enable organised portfolio management, risk isolation, strategy diversification, and client fund handling into distinct accounts.
• Trader privacy to prevent the world seeing your PnL, positions, liquidation prices and conditional order limits.

These are just some of the features, the rest we’ll be sharing in more detail in the leadup to launch.

Why an offchain matching engine

Having a centralised sequencer is currently THE ONLY way to develop a high frequency trading system that meets trader performance expectations. It can either be an exchange’s sequencer (the matching engine) or the blockchain’s sequencer.

It is our belief that operating a high performing offchain matching engine on the most secure and highest TVL blockchain (Ethereum Mainnet) far outweigh the downsides of operating a fully onchain matching engine on a decentralised blockchain. 

This is not to say that there aren’t ways we can minimize the trust assumptions required of an offchain system. The improvements to ZK technology, led by companies like Succinct and their zkVM SP1, have played a key role in expediting the ability to trustlessly verify large offchain computations with small fast proofs. Technology like this can play a role in the future of Synthetix to enable us to further minimize the ‘trust’ a trader needs to place on us without sacrificing our ability to operate a high frequency trading system on Ethereum Mainnet. 

The worst part of the current perp experience is having to bridge. Being on Ethereum eliminates this friction. There are no bridge risks and no waiting for another chain to receive your deposits (on and off an alternate chain). There’s just an Ethereum Mainnet deposit contract, co-located where the majority of DeFi activity takes place. Relative to building your own chain, where you end up requiring bridges to a new / your own island where you need to incentivise an ecosystem of activity.

In addition to this, whilst it’s cool to say how transparent everything is when operating a fully onchain matching engine, this introduces features that NO ONE ACTUALLY WANTS – fully transparent account level data. Traders are willing to give away their financial privacy to avoid CEX custody, but what if you could maintain privacy without doing so? Hosting a matching engine onchain voids an exchange’s opportunity to do this as all trading data ends up being posted publicly.

There have been many comments since our announcement that offering a high frequency trading system on Ethereum is not plausible, primarily due to PTSD from DeFi summer where a simple send would often cost over $50. Whilst Ethereum has come a long way since, and is now committed more than ever to scaling the L1, by operating an offchain matching engine, Synthetix can and will offer gasless order placement, and abstract away settlement costs.

Synthetix is Back and Better than Ever!

Synthetix is returning home to Ethereum Mainnet, where our story began, to launch a high performing perp marketplace. We’re mission driven to bring a perp market to Ethereum Mainnet, the home of DeFi. This will enable traders to manage asset exposure, hedge risk, access leverage, build structured products (e.g. basis trade vaults) and execute complex trading strategies ON ETHEREUM MAINNET. We’ve made very deliberate trade-offs in our designs and architecture that will offer a unique and market leading trading experience. We’ve combined the permissionless and non-custodial benefits of building on a blockchain, with high performance requirements and trader privacy that an offchain matching engine permits us to offer.

Synthetix will have its comeback arc. And for those paying attention it’s already in motion.

>> Ethereum Mainnet Perp soon <<

Follow Synthetix as we speedrun to mainnet:

Blockchain Banter Live

As the host of Blockchain Banter, I recently sat down with Dr. Mark Richardson, Project Lead at Bancor and Carbon DeFi, and Yves Burri and Oliver Giera, the Founder and Co-founder of Aureus — a Real World Assets (RWA) protocol that’s quickly becoming a go-to solution for institutions entering the space.

This episode unpacks why now is the time for RWAs, and the pieces coming together to make it possible.

What Held Them Back? Enforceability

https://medium.com/media/3dc915b57e46591df33c8e31f269d0de/href

“If you go into the office of a $100 million fund and pitch tokenized assets, they won’t rely on regulation that will hopefully rule in their favor. They need certainty. They need to know: ‘Can I enforce my rights in court?’”

Aureus spent years fusing together institutional-grade infrastructure with meticulously designed legal blueprints and compliant frameworks — and for the first time, the answer to institutions’ biggest question is an unequivocal yes.

“Now, institutions aren’t just curious — they’re actively reaching out. They want to be among the first movers.”

But enforceability alone doesn’t complete the picture. Compliance without privacy isn’t enough.

COTI and the Compliance-Privacy Paradox

https://medium.com/media/53b7b513e191b9248468ff26ecbd8c68/href

Institutions have another non-negotiable requirement: not just privacy, but the right kind of privacy.

As Yves put it, Monero is a cypherpunk’s dream — but for a regulated market? “It’s dangerous to even list.” The issue isn’t privacy itself — it’s unaccountable privacy.

“Society is okay with Aunt Josephine having privacy over her bank account. But when Osama Bin Laden asks for privacy to buy remote controllers, that’s where lines get drawn.”

Yves mentioned there were a number of privacy solutions out there, but only with COTI’s Privacy-on-Demand technology did Aureus find a privacy solution that doesn’t jeopardize compliance.

“It stays sealed unless a legitimate authority has a reason to look inside.”

With enforceability addressed and privacy secured, one barrier still remained — an institutional-grade trading system that could actually support large asset transactions.

This is where “Bancor’s Carbon DeFi completes the puzzle”.

Bancor and the Institutional DEX Problem

https://medium.com/media/6df0a676ccd92e6b18b12b4f222fa3b1/href

“The infrastructure that you have to provide to cope with the compliance, scale, and just general structure and experience of a traditional finance player — this has not been there in DeFi three, four years ago.”

“Carbon DeFi, the single-sided order book curves that you provide — this not only complies with what a private equity or private debt [holder] would want… It goes beyond that. It allows them to effectively scale in and out of assets based on parameters they can define.”

In other words, Carbon DeFi doesn’t just meet institutional expectations — it lets them trade on their own terms, with programmable precision.

“It’s almost like you can define a term sheet with very elaborate terms that they’re used to, and you can put it onchain as a passive order.”

And unlike most DEXs, Carbon DeFi is resilient by design.

“There’s no sketchy or elaborate mechanisms that people could run sandwich attacks or try to move your order curve in any way. There’s simply no incentive — you would just lose money and essentially play into the hands of the strategy maker.”

This level of control and predictability? Unmatched and native to the protocol, with no third party dependencies or risks involved.

“Many of these things are such a novelty. But they really, for us, make such a strong case when we talk to these institutional players… Nothing else offers this level of flexibility — not even close.”

Not All DEXes are Built the Same

https://medium.com/media/c38afaf734a3a81dc3acfe49d0af7984/href

“You guys are titans of the DeFi industry. You invented the AMM and in my opinion, you kind of invented DeFi… but now you’ve invented a much better product than even the AMM — which is Carbon DeFi.”

“Nobody is going to sell a $20 million infrastructure asset on Uniswap… but now with Carbon DeFi, with your idea of an onchain order book, you brought a solution. We couldn’t really do what we want to do without this part of the puzzle.”

For Aureus, Bancor was the final layer that brought their institutional blueprint to life.

*If you’re a builder and want to integrate Carbon DeFi directly, contact bizdev@bancor.network for licensing opportunities.

From Idea to Execution

With COTI’s Privacy-on-Demand and Bancor’s Carbon DeFi, each solved a fundamental piece — from compliant privacy to programmable, institutional-grade trading infrastructure. But it was Aureus bringing them together, and bringing crypto closer to true institutional adoption.

Watch the full episode — Presented by Bancor

https://medium.com/media/ed1106cf32e41acedc42129996ad6c18/href

Blockchain Banter is a live, unscripted discussion series where industry experts, builders, and thought leaders come together to share knowledge, challenge ideas, and explore the evolving landscape of DeFi and blockchain.

Follow me on X and LinkedIn, and reach out if you’re interested in joining a future episode – I love connecting with builders, thought-leaders, and especially skeptics.

Aureus

Aureus is engineering a new era of sovereign, resilient finance — a trusted bridge that liberates trillions in real-world assets and channels them into the world’s most liquid capital markets. Our ecosystem is anchored by AUg, a gold-backed settlement token, and a fully regulated exchange for tokenised equities. By fusing institutional-grade decentralised infrastructure with radically simple user experience — and upholding our Swiss Standard of Trust — we are building a fairer, more robust global economy.

COTI

COTI is renowned for its “Privacy-on-Demand” solution, a revolutionary approach to on-chain confidentiality. By utilizing an innovative implementation of garbled circuits, COTI enables encrypted and compliant transactions, protecting users from front-running and other malicious attacks without compromising on-chain liquidity.

Bancor

Bancor is a pioneer in decentralized finance (DeFi), established in 2016. It invented the core technologies underpinning the majority of today’s automated market makers (AMMs) and continues to develop the foundational infrastructure critical to DeFi’s success — focusing on enhanced liquidity mechanics and robust onchain market operation.

For more on Bancor

Website | Blog | X/Twitter | Analytics | YouTube | Governance

Carbon DeFi

Carbon DeFi, Bancor’s flagship DEX, enables users to do everything possible on a traditional AMM — and more. This includes custom onchain limit and range orders, with the ability to combine orders into automated buy low, sell high strategies. It is powered by Bancor’s latest patented technologies: Asymmetric Liquidity and Adjustable Bonding Curves.

For more on Carbon DeFi

Website | X/Twitter | Analytics | Telegram

All products of Bancor are governed by the Bancor DAO.

Simply Powerful Trading — Powered by Bancor

Crypto’s Turning Point — RWAs and the Rise in Regulation was originally published in Bancor on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Zoom image will be displayed

Welcome to the official guide for the GVNR x Carbon DeFi Trading Competition.

This guide covers everything you need to participate confidently — including strategy types, detailed examples, eligibility requirements, and answers to frequently asked questions.

A wide range of liquidity strategies can be deployed on Carbon DeFi in just a couple clicks, including:

• Native Onchain Limit and Range Orders
  Execute one-time trades at specific prices (limit order) or within a specific range of prices (range order).
• Automated Recurring Strategies
  Buy in one price point or range and sell in a higher price point or range, on repeat. Carbon DeFi automatically shifts liquidity between the buy and sell orders as they are filled.
• Concentrated Liquidity Strategies
  A concentrated liquidity position where you buy and sell in a custom price range, used to create a bid-ask spread that moves as the market does.

Visit the Carbon DeFi FAQs for additional information on creating a trading strategy.

Quarterly Report for Synthetix, Quarter 2 of 2025: April — June.

Q2 Highlights

Spartan Council/CCs: Synthetix Relaunch, 420 Pool Adoption

The past few months have been a pivotal period for Synthetix, marked by a focus on ecosystem alignment and key shifts in the core product roadmap. From the successful expansion of the 420 Pool to the upcoming launch of a reimagined perps product on Ethereum Mainnet, the protocol leadership has outlined a comprehensive proposal to streamline product delivery and attract new users. As Synthetix sharpens its focus on Mainnet consolidation and prepares for a new era of decentralized derivatives, let’s review some of the technical highlights for the protocol in Q2.

While previous development efforts have generally been centered around scaling solutions like Base and Optimism, the Spartan Council has signaled that Mainnet will serve as the anchor for Synthetix’s core products moving forward. This pivot reflects a strategic desire to simplify the protocol’s footprint, reduce liquidity fragmentation across chains, and align with Ethereum’s robust security and liquidity base. With the planned development of a new perps market on Mainnet and plans to consolidate staking and governance functionality around this ecosystem, Synthetix is reasserting its commitment to building a streamlined, capital-efficient protocol that leverages Ethereum’s security, liquidity, and credibility.

Make no mistake  – this is a race. The protocol hopes to capture first mover’s advantage, and the market share that comes with it as the sole perps offering on L1. Success depends on precise timing, smooth user onboarding, reliable execution, and, most critically, a real demonstration of high-volume traders being willing to adopt and utilize the product, leaving the comfort of high performance DEXs and centralized exchanges.

Meanwhile, momentum around the 420 Pool has continued to build following its debut last quarter. With the introduction of Simple Staking, even more SNX migrated to the 420 Pool, as the streamlined interface and reduced complexity made it easier for users (even those less familiar with DeFi) to participate in staking and earn rewards without actively managing their debt. As of late June, over 170 million SNX had been migrated, accounting for roughly half of the total supply, and cementing the 420 Pool as the dominant staking mechanism within the Synthetix ecosystem. The increased participation has improved capital consolidation, enhanced system-wide debt efficiency, and allowed governance to operate with clearer insights into collateral allocation.

Challenges

The most significant development of the past few months has been the winding down of all Synthetix L2 products and subsequent refocusing around a new product being built on Ethereum Mainnet. As the protocol pivots back to L1, it faces the logistical complexity of sunsetting legacy systems, coordinating incentives across multiple chains, and keeping users informed during a period of significant transition.

Maintaining sUSD peg stability has also been a persistent challenge over the past several months. The shift to centrally managed staking was designed, in part, to shore up peg stability by enabling a unified approach to debt deployment. However, the rollout of the debt jubilee introduced excess sUSD supply, creating significant price pressure on sUSD. This imbalance was compounded by liquidity fragmentation across chains and the winding down of L2 deployments, which made it even harder to manage sUSD supply and demand effectively. As the protocol continues to grow, preserving sUSD’s reliability as a unit of account will be critical to maintaining trust and utility across its ecosystem.

Complicating matters further, the terms of the debt jubilee have shifted multiple times since its introduction. Initially framed as a clear 12-month path to full forgiveness, eligibility requirements have since changed: first requiring users to deposit 10% of their debt in sUSD, then 20%, with no guarantee that further adjustments won’t be made. While the updated model still offers significant value, effectively 80% forgiveness under the original lock-up terms, it has deviated from early expectations. These changes reflect the technical and economic realities of peg maintenance, but underscore the importance of stable, transparent, and well-communicated incentive structures.

Lastly, community participation has also continued to decline to some extent. Fewer candidates have stepped forward for council elections, SIP presentations have slowed, and community updates have been reduced to monthly calls. This decline in activity stands in stark contrast to the once-vibrant governance ecosystem that Synthetix helped pioneer. Reinvigorating contributor interest and reestablishing predictable, accessible channels for engagement will be essential to reactivating the DAO and ensuring meaningful community involvement as the protocol enters its next phase.

Protocol Stats

Overview of Synthetix Q2 Stats: April 2025 — June 2025.

Spartan Council

Q2 2025 Spartan Councilors: Benjamin Celermajer (Fenway), Brent Maxwell, Cavalier, coKaiynne, Jordan Momtazi, Kain Warwick, MasterMojo

Now that we’ve discussed highlights and challenges Q2, let’s get into a more in-depth review of the major accomplishments from the protocol and Spartan Council.

Big news kicked off the quarter: Synthetix Accounts went live! This new smart wallet was tailor-made for on-chain perps traders. It brought gasless, 1-click trading to over 100 markets, while simplifying onboarding with an email, Google account, or passkey logins — no seed phrases needed.

Synthetix Accounts featured:

• Self-custody with exportable keys
• Fast margin deposits (USDC, ETH, cbBTC, cbETH)
• Instant access to trading without wallet popups or multi-step signing
• Multi-device support for flexible trading

Synthetix Exchange was quietly cooking, and the result was a UX leap forward that made DeFi trading feel like Web2.

Following that major usability win, Synthetix then turned its attention to staking, and two big updates dropped. sUSD staking went live in the 420 Pool, and eligible stakers (those also staking SNX) began earning a share of 5M SNX in rewards over 12 months, or 13,698 SNX daily. Deposits were locked for 1 year, with rewards set to vest over 3 months post-campaign.

Next, SNX staking was also radically simplified. Launched on Ethereum Mainnet, SNX holders are now able to stake directly into the 420 Pool with no debt, no C-ratios, and no liquidations. Withdrawals require a 7-day cooldown, and rewards are set to vest at campaign end in May 2026.

Both pools were made available at 420.synthetix.io. Early participation was strong, and over half the SNX supply ended up staked! With this new model in place, however, it was time to phase out the old one. Legacy SNX staking positions were deprecated, per SCCP-403, so:

• If a user’s C-ratio was under 160%, their position was liquidated and unrecoverable.
• If it was 160% or above, they could recover via the Synthetix Discord ticket system.

This move enabled the protocol to streamline toward automated vaults, V4, and a better UX for stakers.

But upgrading staking wasn’t enough, because the protocol also had to deal with the consequences of the debt jubilee. Following the SIP-420 debt jubilee and delegated staking upgrade, sUSD experienced heavy sell pressure, falling to ~$0.70.

In order to restore the peg, SNX debt holders were required to stake 20% of their original debt as sUSD in the 420 Pool. This strategy (alongside Treasury buybacks, Curve incentives, and Infinex campaigns) has helped repeg sUSD a bit, but reaching $1.00 has remained a bit tricky, hence the increase to 20%.

The effort to restore the peg is still a priority for Synthetix, in order to put the protocol in a better position to pursue yield generation via the 420 Pool and a new Synthetix Perps product on Mainnet.

Despite peg issues, protocol governance carried on and governance elections wrapped up with the following Spartans taking elected seats on the new council:

• Advisory Seats: Kain, Jordan, MasterMojo
• Treasury Seat: cokaiynne

As governance stabilized, community engagement ramped up a bit as Spartan Spaces were more officially rebooted. Some highlights featured Pirate Chain, a privacy-first L1, discussing privacy and censorship resistance in DeFi, and Panoptic, a DeFi-native options trading using Uniswap V3.

But behind the scenes, bigger strategic decisions were on the table. SIP-415, the proposal to acquire Derive (formerly Lyra), was presented and then withdrawn after community feedback. While the move could’ve fast-tracked the V4 timeline and added an off-chain matching engine for L1 perps, concerns about valuation and token dilution led to its cancellation. The proposal offered a $27M valuation that would have been settled via a 29.3M new SNX mint, but community consensus remained a core pillar for Synthetix as voices were heard in opposition.

Shortly after this, however, the vision for V4 on Mainnet took center stage as Synthetix announced a soon-to-be native perps exchange on Ethereum Mainnet, complete with:

• Off-chain matching engine
• Batch on-chain settlement
• Points program to incentivize usage

Phase 0 kicked off with sUSD/sUSDe early deposit vaults, where traders, stakers, and referrers began earning points. The program will also be evolving over time, with more opportunities to earn points and join competitions with juicy prizes in SNX, stablecoins, and more.

But, this isn’t just another “version” update  –  Synthetix Mainnet will mark a full pivot. L1 is the future. To complete the shift, the protocol began retiring its L2 deployments.

Synthetix began sunsetting all L2s except Optimism (for now):

• Arbitrum: Fully deprecated; vaults liquidated. Debt repayment and collateral claims were handled via Discord.
• Base:
• June 30: Perps entered close-only mode; leverage tokens became redeem-only
• July 7: Full deprecation completed; LP vaults liquidated

Synthetix is coming back home to Mainnet, and Spartans are making the move. Soonthetix!

Best Memes from Q2

Lastly, because we can’t close out the quarter without a little humor, here were some of the best memes from the Synthetix community.

Smarter liquidity mining campaigns powered by Carbon DeFi’s onchain strategies and Metrom’s KPI-based incentive protocol

Token projects on Sei now have a smarter way to launch liquidity mining campaigns — with outcome-based rewards and full onchain control. Thanks to the recent integration between Carbon DeFi and Metrom, token projects aren’t just subsidizing idle liquidity, they’re designing targeted reward systems that reflect real trading activity.

Metrom is a protocol for launching targeted incentive campaigns tied to measurable KPIs. Rather than distribute rewards blindly, Metrom lets projects set clear goals — and only pays when those targets are met.

Projects can choose their token pairs, define campaign durations, customize payout logic, and filter participants — all from one interface.

Most trading platforms limit what users can do. Bancor designed Carbon DeFi to change that — giving users the tools to trade the way they’ve always wanted, but never could.

With Carbon DeFi, users create precision strategies using custom limit and range orders — including recurring “buy low, sell high” cycles that run automatically. Strategies execute in one direction, at predefined prices, with zero slippage, full onchain adjustability, and immunity from MEV sandwich attacks. It’s not just trading — it’s automated execution with intent.

Now, Metrom enables token projects to incentivize these strategies directly — rewarding the kind of behavior that drives real market activity, not just idle liquidity.

Instead of paying mercenary LPs to idle capital in passive pools, token projects can now launch campaigns that reward active strategies — built on intent, price targets, and real market participation.

Together, Carbon DeFi and Metrom support more active, efficient markets — and reward traders who actually contribute to them.

And because Carbon DeFi includes a built-in trading bot, Bancor’s Arb Fast Lane, orders are filled efficiently using liquidity from across the entire Sei ecosystem.

Smarter incentives. Cleaner execution. Real trading strategies.

Reach out on Telegram or Discord to get started.