What is Synthetix?

Synthetix is building a decentralized liquidity provisioning protocol that any protocol can tap into for various purposes. Its deep liquidity and low fees serve as a backend for many exciting protocols on both Optimism and Ethereum. Many user-facing protocols in the Synthetix Ecosystem, such as Kwenta (Spot and Futures), Lyra (Options), Polynomial (Automated Options), and 1inch & Curve (Atomic Swaps), tap into Synthetix liquidity to power their protocols. Synthetix is built on Optimism and Ethereum Mainnet. The Synthetix Network is collateralized by SNX, ETH, and LUSD, enabling the issuance of synthetic assets (Synths). This pooled collateral enables an array of on-chain, composable financial instruments backed by liquidity from Synthetix. Some of the most exciting upcoming releases from SNX are Perps V2 which hopes to enable low-fee on-chain futures trading through the usage of off-chain oracles, and Synthetix V3 which aims to rebuild the protocol to achieve its earliest goal, being a fully permissionless derivatives protocol. Learn more about Synthetix on their blog or by joining the SNX Discord.

A brief history of Synthetix

Cain Warwick is the creator of Synthetix. He graduated from UNSW Sydney with a BSC in Genetics. In addition to his position as a founder of Synthetix, he is an advisory board member and investor in The Burger Collective, the founder and non-executive director of Blueshyft, and an advisory council member of Blockchain Australia.

Synthetix lets its customers trade a range of assets, including gold and silver, using decentralised protocols. The advantage of trading gold, silver, and other synthetic assets on Synthetix is the effortless trade and profit from possessing the synthetic equivalent of real-world assets without owning them.

On 11 June 2018, nUSD, a stablecoin, was introduced as the first Synth on Synthetix, then still known as Havven. Since its inception, Synthetix grew to one of the biggest derivative DeFi protocols on the market.

As of June 2022, assets represented by Synths have shrunk to representing crypto, forex, and an index that traces DeFi. In other words, commodities like gold are currently not available anymore. The platform’s current locked value sits at over US$300 million locked as of June 2022.

How Synthetix works

Synthetix enables the issuance of synthetic assets on the Ethereum blockchain. These are analogous to derivatives in TradFi, but in the form of ERC-20 smart contracts. Synths track the assets they represent and provide the returns without requiring users to hold the asset itself. For this, Synths use decentralised oracles, which are smart contract-based price discovery protocols, to track the prices of the assets represented.

Synthetix issues multiple cryptocurrencies. The first is Synthetix's native token, SNX. Second are the Synths, the tokens that represent assets and mirror their pricing (e.g., sEUR, sUSD, and sJPY). The Synths can be traded on Kwenta, Synthetix’s decentralised exchange (DEX).

Other platforms built on top of the Synthetix protocol allow users to trade decentralised perpetual futures, power options, and deal coordination markets. The Synthetix ecosystem is further leveraged by protocols including Yearn, Curve, and DHedge for liquidity, lowering slippage, and hedging.

What is SNX used for?

Synthetix’s native token SNX must be used to provide collateral against the Synths that users want to acquire. The token allows for direct conversion between Synths, eliminating the liquidity and slippage issues.

Users can also stake SNX tokens on the platform: The token is used to provide collateral for creating a synthetic asset through Mintr. Stakers are encouraged to generate Synths since they obtain the right to a predetermined amount of inflation and fees on Synth trading. When SNX stakers mint Synths, they incur debt, and in order to leave the system (i.e., release their SNX), they must repay the loan by burning the percentage of Synths they created.