Synthetix, Kwenta launch v3 perpetuals on Arbitrum

Synthetix has launched its v3 liquidity platform on Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 after a series of product delays prompted a governance overhaul at the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, Synthetix told Cointelegraph on Oct. 24.

Kwenta, a perpetuals exchange, will be the first DeFi protocol on Arbitrum to use Synthetix’s v3 liquidity infrastructure, Synthetix said.

Synthetix, which specializes in providing liquidity for decentralized exchanges (DEXs), is betting that accepting multiple token types as trading collateral will differentiate v3 in Arbitrum’s competitive DeFi ecosystem.

“No one currently has this on Arbitrum, and it’s going to be an extremely large unlock,” Matt Losquadro, a Synthetix contributor, said in August.

Kwenta already partners with Synthetix on other blockchain networks. The perpetuals DEX has hosted more than $32 billion in trading activity across dozens of chains, according to Kwenta’s website.

Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are a type of derivative that allows traders to buy or sell an asset at a future date with no expiration.

Governance shakeup

In October, Synthetix (SNX) tokenholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of a proposed governance shakeup after the protocol fell short of product delivery deadlines, including its planned v3 multi-collateral perpetuals launch on Arbitrum.

With upward of $2.3 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to data from DefiLlama, Arbitrum is a hub for DeFi activity.

DeFi protocol GMX currently dominates Arbitrum’s decentralized perps market with nearly $390 million in TVL.

“Arbitrum is the home of DeFi derivatives. There’s no doubt about that. There’s a large number of protocols there, [and] the competition is fierce,” Losquadro said in August.

In a Sept. 25 SR-2 proposal, Benjamin Celermajer, a longtime SNX investor, outlined a plan to “completely overhaul” and improve the governance and day-to-day operations of Synthetix. 

Among other alleged shortcomings, “[d]elays in development […] prevented Synthetix from capturing market narratives, user attention and product adoption,” the proposal said.

Celermajer took charge of strategy as a Synthetix core contributor after the restructuring, Synthetix said in an Oct. 4 blog post.

Synthetix is also reorganizing as a foundation to “streamline and improve our capabilities regarding business activities that require signing contracts with partners,” among other potential benefits, the blog said.

“If we start to execute relentlessly—get multi-collateral up, communicate our progress, and implement the foundation structure—people will see activity returning to the protocol at a quick pace,” Celermajer told Cointelegraph in an interview.

In September, Synthetix launched a new app chain — SNAXchain — aimed at bringing cross-chain liquidity and trading-fee revenues to native-token stakers and onchain trading products. 

The app chain will initially serve as an onchain governance platform to manage Synthetix deployments on Ethereum mainnet and layer-2 (L2) scaling chains, including Optimisim, Arbitrum and Base, according to a Sept. 4 post on the X platform. 

However, Synthetix is actively exploring “future functionality for SNAXchain, including staking for SNX, cross-chain liquidity, and powering a custom-built perps product,” Losquadro said in September.

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