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
Follow on X: x.com/synthetix_io

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:

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.

Synthetix is returning to Ethereum mainnet to launch a perps exchange 

Launching the first perps DEX on Ethereum Mainnet

In 2019, Synthetix led the move to Optimism, as Ethereum wasn’t scaling fast enough. While we solved scaling, what many of us underestimated was the impact of liquidity fragmentation from the proliferation of Layer 2 blockchains. The L2-centric roadmap diluted attention, activity and capital away from Ethereum mainnet and ETH the asset.

This enabled more chains like Solana to capture mindshare.

Finally the tide is turning. Validators, core developers, and even Vitalik are rallying the community to refocus on Mainnet. 

The missing component is DeFi projects coming back to mainnet to leverage the growing block space capacity, to deliver unique products that are optimized for security and stability of Ethereum. 

Mainnet is where institutions are looking, where ETF flows land, and is the home of RWAs and stablecoins. Ethereum Mainnet holds over half of all DeFi value, more than seven times that of any L2. Despite this value dominance, very few novel protocols have launched on mainnet since L2s became prevalent, with the exception of EigenLayer and Ethena.

Synthetix is coming home again. This means getting rid of all the technical debt that’s accumulated over the last 4 years, including ceasing all operations on L2s, redesigning staking (done), closing legacy pools, etc.

Synthetix has been battle-tested in DeFi since 2017, pioneering synthetic assets, liquidity incentives and yield farming and decentralized stablecoins. After years of championing and focusing product development on major L2s, we’ve seen and felt their limitations. Synthetix is returning to its Ethereum Mainnet roots, where DeFi was born, to launch a perps exchange. Something that no one has tried since perpetuals became the dominant financial product in crypto.

Competing with centralised exchanges

As recently as last year, Synthetix prioritized onchain decentralization above all else, even user experience. This uncompromising idealism hampered our ability to build elegant products. We were building for an ideologically aligned audience, but unable to scale past early adopters, let alone a wider crypto audience. We chased ideological purity, while users chased speed and simplicity. 

We’ve learned the hard way that user experience is non-negotiable. No degree of decentralization, either real or perceived, can overcome clunky interfaces or poor performance. If DeFi feels clunky, users will stick with familiar centralized platforms. 

To attract the next wave of capital and challenge incumbents, we must optimize for user experience, while remaining non-custodial, so we don’t become CeFi. 

Let’s be honest: everyone in DeFi is competing with centralized exchanges.

Infinex has proven it is possible to deliver onchain, non custodial products with exceptional user experience. 

Our job now is to make Mainnet trading so intuitive that users forget it’s onchain, meeting them where they are, not where we wish they were. Fortunately, Synthetix has a long history of solving difficult onchain challenges.

Increasing chaininess

Synthetix has learned that in order to win we need to own the customer experience, offer an orderbook instead of an AMM, and deploy on Ethereum mainnet instead of L2s.

Despite years of trying to make onchain AMMs work for perps, orderbooks offer better liquidity and trader experience. While orderbooks can’t currently be run on mainnet, Ethereum is the best place to custody, and settle, without the bridge risks or liquidity fragmentation.

In order to return to mainnet, we are using a different architecture to anything before, with offchain order matching, and batch settlement onchain: 

• L1 Custody and Settlement: Users don’t want to bridge large amounts to L2, so we are using L1. User funds are custodied on L1, and trades settle directly to L1. Trader margin is managed by the offchain orderbook (for now), but onchain withdrawals are permissionless.
• Offchain Matching Engine: Institutional-grade exchanges demand high-throughput, low-latency, fault-tolerant matching engines. Neither L2s or Solana, nevermind Ethereum, have sufficient throughput to run a matching engine onchain. Our offchain engine delivers the performance professional and discerning traders expect. 

As Ethereum scales, more functionality will migrate onchain, and is the primary vector of decentralization.

“The Relaunch”

This is the biggest Synthetix launch in history, and we’re putting up [redacted] SNX tokens towards launch incentives. SNX tokens will be earned from points, which start accruing in Phase 0 of the campaign, beginning with sUSD and sUSDe predeposit vaults. 

500 early access invite codes will be issued to sUSD and sUSDe pre-depositors, 420 pool depositors and key partners. These will grant exclusive access to early testnet and mainnet deployments, as well as several gated trading competitions – each of which will have a large prize pool including SNX, stables and [redacted].

Points will be earned through pre-deposits, trading performance on testnet and mainnet, referrals and other activities in the lead up to the full deployment of Synthetix perps on Ethereum Mainnet. 

Phase 0 will start this month, with sUSD and sUSDe deposit contracts live before ETH CC.

Mainnet Perp Summer.

Restoring the role of SNX and sUSD

The SNX token is reclaiming its place at the heart of Synthetix as a source of yield, liquidity, and governance alignment. We’ve overhauled SNX staking to be intuitive: stake SNX, earn protocol fees. No PhD required. The staking offering is simple, with no need for hedging, active debt management, or complex onboarding.

Synthetix has the 3rd longest living stablecoin, sUSD. While we were inadvertently removing the utility of our own stablecoin by launching v3, other protocols had seen the opportunity and were launching their own stablecoins. We have seen the error of our ways, and are restoring the utility of sUSD.

Stakers no longer mint sUSD, that role now sits with the Treasury Market, which dynamically mints, burns and deploys sUSD to maintain the peg and fuel trading liquidity in the orderbook. sUSD will be the deposit asset for AMMs to market-make on the exchange, generating yield from trading activity, from sharing fees and from liquidations.

Synthetix has been a DeFi pioneer since its inception. With >50% of SNX now staked, Treasury-funded buybacks, and a Mainnet launch on the horizon, SNX is poised for a renewed role in DeFi.

Conclusion

The great irony of the L2 scaling roadmap is that it has made space for innovation and DeFi to return to L1, where it all began. Attention is rightfully returning to Ethereum Mainnet and the protocols that add value to the chain that started it all. Synthetix is delivering a critical missing piece: a high-performance perp exchange, cementing Ethereum’s role as the home of global finance.

Follow Synthetix closely as we speedrun to mainnet:

Since the release of SIP-420, which changes how the Synthetix protocol manages debt, sUSD has navigated a period of instability as a stablecoin.

While we are certain of the longterm value of sUSD as a central mechansim of Synthetix, this post recaps the steps that have been taken to help navigate the period of change, and formalises the next steps that will be taken to close the gap towards $1; including market-led protocol buybacks of sUSD.

The Recap

As the market has responded to these SIP-420 changes, several measures have been observed and carried out which have softened the impact and corrected the price without heavy intervention:

• Short-term mechanisms such as the Infinex sUSD Rewards Campaign (1 week left)
• Organic sUSD market buyers are in play, traders who understand the long-term strength of Synthetix
• sUSD deposits in the 420 Pool have moved the needle significantly; still offering 72% APY at time of writing
• 420 debt relievooors are now required to maintain a 10% sUSD ratio to stake, this has been largely complied with by stakers in the 420 Pool

We’re at 93 cents today. So, what’s next?

Synthetix has made the plan public: we’re building a market-leading perps exchange on Ethereum mainnet. And we’re accelerating towards that goal, in part via the proposed acquisition of Derive.

sUSD will be a crucial part of Synthetix moving forward. In the long term, the protocol intends to maintain the peg through natural demand and market dynamics, rather than through incentives or buybacks.

But in the meantime, Synthetix has a reputation to uphold, and a responsibility to DeFi more broadly.

So, with roughly 6.5 cents left to reclaim, we are today announcing the beginning of treasury buy-backs. These will occur and on-market purchases, not via OTC deals, and will be capped at a maximum of $1 million USD per day, allocated as needed to support natural market forces.

Stay up-to-date

As referenced by Kain in his X thread today, Synthetix is in the midst of an aggressive reboot, on a mission to bring DeFi value back to mainnet, and back to Synthetix.

Stay up to date via the Synthetix discord, Synthetix X and by voting on SIP-415.

In another major move, today a proposal has been raised for the acquisition of Derive, a leading decentralised options platform and former Synthetix ecosystem project. The transaction, outlined in SIP-415, marks a major step in consolidating product, talent and token economy into a single, unified derivatives protocol on Ethereum mainnet.

Pending approval by the Spartan Council and Derive governance, the deal will be structured as a token exchange at a 27:1 DRV-to-SNX ratio, valuing the deal at approximately $27 million USD. To facilitate this, Synthetix will issue up to 29.3 million SNX tokens (3-month lock-up and 9-month linear vesting) in order to merge the Derive token supply and market cap with that of SNX.

Strategic Rationale: One Protocol, Unified Direction

This acquisition accelerates Synthetix’s push towards a leading Ethereum mainnet perps engine, by integrating Derive’s capabilities and team into the core protocol. Key benefits include:

• Product Suite Expansion: Derive’s CLOB-based perpetuals exchange, delivering a hybrid decentralised derivatives stack with advanced Options Trading infrastructure on the table which can be merged with Synthetix to rival Hyperliquid, Binance, Deribit, and dYdX.
• Tech & Team Integration: The Derive team, (some of whom are Synthetix OGs already) bring critical experience in modular CLOB design, L1/L2 systems, and options mechanics: all directly complementing Synthetix DNA and roadmap.
• Accelerated Deployment: With Derive’s app-chain based stack production-ready, the mainnet deployment of the CLOB exchange can begin immediately after acquisition close.
• Community and Governance Consolidation: Derive and Synthetix communities share common roots and values. This move unites us under a single token, governance structure, and go-to-market strategy, enhancing both network effects and operational clarity.
• Value Creation: With all protocol products and revenue now flowing through a single token, the investment thesis becomes stronger and simpler. What could be better as we focus on bringing more value to Ethereum mainnet via the SNX token.

Reuniting the Tribe

Launched originally as Lyra, Derive emerged from Synthetix during a period when the protocol deprioritised direct product development in favour of supporting external integrators. That model led to fragmentation and misaligned incentives across the ecosystem.

The past six months have reversed that trajectory. With a renewed focus on product velocity, protocol-level capital efficiency, and ecosystem consolidation, Synthetix has returned to building primitives directly—starting with the re-acquisitions of Kwenta and TLX, and now, Derive.

“Derive was born from the same DNA,” said Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix. “Reuniting under one banner simplifies our architecture and governance and unlocks the next phase. This is the kids going out to build their own successful start-ups, and coming back to join the family business ”

Back to First Principles

This acquisition reflects our return to what made Synthetix powerful in the first place: vertical integration, token-aligned incentives, and world-class on-chain products. Built and owned by the protocol itself.

Options, perps, app-chains, and vaults; deployed natively, governed on-chain, and executed with urgency.

“By returning to Ethereum for its credible neutrality, composable settlement, and trusted self-custody, Synthetix’s redemption path is set to return to being a market-leading decentralised derivatives platform.” – Ben “Fenway” Celermajer

What’s Next

The proposal is subject to approval by both governance bodies: the Spartan Council and Derive token holders, via SIP-415 and DIP-XXX, respectively. Upon approval, Derive’s treasury, intellectual property, repos, UI stack, and governance systems will be merged into the Synthetix protocol. DRV holders will receive SNX under the agreed vesting terms, aligning long-term incentives across the unified network.

Stay Involved:

Synthetix founder Kain Warwick has issued a stern message to SNX stakers, urging them to adopt the protocol’s newly launched staking mechanism aimed at restoring the dollar peg of its stablecoin, sUSD.

In an April 21 post on X, Warwick made it clear that if voluntary participation fails, stronger measures may follow.

The sUSD 420 Pool, introduced on April 18, offers stakers a share of 5 million SNX tokens over a 12-month period if they lock their sUSD in the pool for a full year.

New Staking Mechanism Aims to Restore sUSD’s $1 Peg by Reducing Supply

The goal is to reduce circulating sUSD and help restore the token’s $1 peg.

However, Warwick admitted the mechanism is currently “very manual” and lacks a user-friendly interface—though one is in development.

Once the UI goes live, Warwick warned that if participation remains low, pressure on SNX stakers will increase.

“We tried nothing, which didn’t work. Now we’ve tried the carrot, and it kind of worked—but I’m reserving judgment,” he said. “I think we all know how much I like the stick.”

Synthetix’s sUSD is a crypto-collateralized stablecoin backed by locked SNX tokens, meaning its price stability depends heavily on the performance and market confidence in SNX.

Since the start of 2025, sUSD has faced repeated instability. On April 18, it fell to $0.68, a 31% drop from its intended $1 peg. As of April 21, it had recovered slightly to $0.77, according to CoinGecko.

Warwick noted that the solution lies with the community: “The collective net worth of SNX stakers is in the billions. The money to solve this is there—we just need to dial in the incentives.”

Synthetix’s latest changes stem from SIP-420, a proposal that shifts debt risk from individual stakers to the protocol itself.

Stablecoin Depegs Remain a Recurring Challenge

Depegs in the stablecoin space are not uncommon. USDC briefly lost its peg in March 2023 after Circle revealed $3.3 billion in reserves were stuck with the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank.

Similarly, TrueUSD (TUSD) dropped below $1 earlier this year amid a wave of redemptions.

Despite the challenges, the stablecoin sector has grown steadily, with total market capitalization surpassing $200 billion in 2025 and transaction volume hitting $27.6 trillion—exceeding the combined annual volume of Visa and Mastercard.

In March, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell affirmed the central bank’s support for developing a regulatory framework around stablecoins during a Senate hearing.

Powell stated that the Federal Reserve supports the creation of a regulatory framework for stablecoins, noting the importance of protecting consumers and savers.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved the advancement of a stablecoin bill that seeks to establish clearer regulations for the sector.

Known as the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act, or the STABLE Act, the legislation passed out of committee on Wednesday with 32 votes in favor and 17 opposed.

The bill, introduced by Committee Chair Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), seeks to establish a comprehensive framework for the issuance and oversight of dollar-pegged stablecoins.

The post Synthetix Founder Warns SNX Stakers to Embrace New Mechanism or Face ‘The Stick’ appeared first on Cryptonews.

The newest trading platform powered by Synthetix – Parifi launches today, boasting features designed to compete with modern centralized exchanges. Parifi makes decentralized derivatives trading more accessible to users with account, chain, and gas abstraction, as well as upcoming mobile app for Android and iOS. 

“With Synthetix’s modular V3 architecture, Parifi is uniquely positioned to offer traders seamless, efficient execution across chains. This integration is a significant enhancement to our perpetual trading protocol and aligns perfectly with our vision for a CEX-like trading experience in a DeFi setting.” – Danny B., Co-Founder & COO

How Parifi Elevates Decentralized Perpetuals Trading

Parifi’s mission is to remove friction from the user experience and make powerful DeFi trading easier for users. To this end, they’ve incorporated a range of features, such as:

Abstraction Features

Chain Abstraction: Traders can seamlessly access a consolidated pool of assets from multiple blockchains with minimal latency. 

Account Abstraction: Parifi simplifies user onboarding, removing the need for traditional private key management.

Gas Abstraction: By abstracting gas fees, Parifi reduces the complexity and cost of transactions, providing a smoother experience.

Margin Features

Unlimited Isolated Positions: Traders can open unlimited positions, each with independent risk parameters, for better flexibility and risk management.

Cross-Margin Positions: Traders can use their entire portfolio as collateral, eliminating the need to swap holdings for specific assets to use as margin funds.

Account Funding

Native On- and Off-Ramping: Funding accounts and withdrawing funds are simplified for Parifi users without extra steps from different third-party service providers. Supporting both USD and EUR, Parifi blends the convenience of large centralized exchanges with the freedom and security of a DEX.

Learn more about Parifi’s features and other world-class technology partners such as Pyth, Router, Pimlico, and Tenderly with their docs.

Expanding the Synthetix Ecosystem

Synthetix is pleased to welcome our newest front-end integrator to the ecosystem. All perpetual derivatives trading on Parifi is powered by Synthetix V3 Perps on our Arbitrum deployment, contributing to our aggregate volume and LP rewards. Traders in the Synthetix community now have access to a new avenue and many new features not previously available on our existing front-ends. As Parifi grows and attracts new users with a CEX-like experience, Synthetix LPs and community members will undoubtedly benefit.

What’s next for Parifi

Today marks an important milestone for Parifi, but this is just the start. The launch sets the stage for a broader campaign, co-marketing initiatives with key partners, an exciting trading competition, and the rollout of new features. While Parifi’s interface is currently mobile-optimized, traders can also look forward to their upcoming mobile app release for Android and iOS.

Over the coming period, Parifi will gradually roll out Chain Abstraction, Cross-Margin Positions, and Native On- and Off-Ramping, further enhancing the platform’s capabilities and solidifying its position as a leader in decentralized derivatives trading.

It’s time for the Synthetix Spartans to welcome the newest addition to our ecosystem with a follow on X, greet the community in their Discord, and check out their app at https://app.parifi.org/.