Synthetix Quarterly Report — Q1 2023

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Quarterly Report for Synthetix, Quarter 1 of 2023: January — March.

Q1 Highlights

⭐ Spartan Council/CCs: Perps V2 Updates & Synthetix V3

⭐ Grants Council: Perps V2 Assist & Stats Web page Enhancements

⭐ Ambassador Council: YouTube Channel & Integrations

We’re again once more with one other thrilling quarterly report for the group — and there have been fairly a couple of main occasions within the first quarter of what’s shaping as much as be an thrilling 2023! As all the time, let’s start with the highlights of the quarter.

Perps V2 was formally deployed on the very finish of This autumn final yr, however at launch, the danger parameters have been conservative sufficient to present the CCs the chance to evaluation stay efficiency information and tweak the product accordingly. Fairly a couple of enhancements have been remodeled the course of the quarter starting from bug fixes to main quality-of-life fixes — a few of which have been proposed by the group and different integrators.

We additionally noticed the much-anticipated Synthetix V3 mainnet rollout start early within the quarter! V3 represents an entire redesign of the core Synthetix structure and can lay the groundwork for quite a lot of on-chain monetary merchandise through an modern liquidity-as-a-service mannequin. At ETHDenver, the CCs have been capable of deploy a number of the preliminary V3 core contracts and so they even started to reimagine what a number of the fundamental Synthetix product choices would appear like underneath the brand new framework (similar to Perps).

Subsequent up for our highlights, the Grants Council (GC) performs a basic function within the Synthetix ecosystem. There’s by no means a scarcity of group members keen to place their abilities to make use of for the great of the protocol, and the Grants Council seeks out these group members and funds work that advantages the protocol. It’s a perform that requires a little bit of agility as they always pivot to satisfy in the present day’s protocol wants and put themselves in place to seize some worth from business tendencies.

As soon as the coaching wheels got here off Perps V2, the Grants Council instantly set to work funding and constructing out instruments to help the product and make it extra accessible. Additionally they oversaw main enhancements to the hero stats web page. At launch, it was a bit clunky and fairly tough to make use of, however the UX has improved significantly and the web page now affords a clear snapshot of necessary protocol information. Dependable stats enhance protocol credibility and might be an necessary instrument within the means of in search of and onboarding new integrators.

The Ambassadors additionally had an thrilling quarter as they continued to be the voice of Synthetix within the broader DeFi ecosystem. That is all the time most clear within the Spartan House occasions that they host, in addition to the integrations they’re able to facilitate both by these occasions or by constructing relationships within the business. This quarter, the Ambassadors hosted 4 spartan areas and have facilitated numerous integrations, at present in varied phases of completion, with Mux protocol, Nested, and Unidex. Additionally they put lots of work in the direction of constructing out the Ambassador YouTube Channel this epoch the place they plan to put up all of their Spartan House recordings in addition to host academic calls with CCs.

Challenges

This quarter, the US banking system got here underneath fairly a little bit of rate of interest stress. As charges began to normalize away from zero, some banks discovered themselves underwater on what was beforehand used to quantify danger free return — US treasuries. Within the mayhem, 3 main crypto banking companions both failed or closed and there was a short concern that Circle wouldn’t have the ability to get better a considerable portion of the money backing USDC, which it had in deposit at Silicon Valley Financial institution.

Because of this, there was a short-lived depeg on USDC. However to stop additional financial institution runs, the US Treasury shortly introduced that each one depositors can be made complete and the USDC worth shortly recovered. This did create some short-term chaos in DeFi as USDC represents a crucial hyperlink within the fiat onramp chain. It additionally occurred towards the backdrop of broader regulatory and liquidity tightening throughout monetary markets. The sUSD peg, nevertheless, remained robust all through this turmoil.

A protocol-level problem this quarter, that can probably prolong by to the launch of V3, is the proposed tokenomics and collateral base. There have been ongoing discussions within the Discord about utilizing collateral aside from SNX to again the liquidity of the system and there are two sides to this debate. We really just lately revealed a separate weblog on this matter that opinions the in-depth dialogue that occurred within the spartan-council channel of the Discord. The argument for utilizing different collateral was that it’ll permit the merchandise to scale past the market cap of the SNX token, and the argument towards was that present SNX holders might lose vital worth on their funding if different collateral is allowed.

In different DAO challenges, we should always take a minute to briefly focus on the Grants Council’s NFT mission. The mission initially took off in mid-to-late 2021 and work started nearly instantly. As a reminder, they’re doing issues a bit of completely different because the proceeds from the bought NFTs will go to a GC fund that’s meant to complement their finances from the Treasury Council. This mission sadly has skilled a number of delays and setbacks: the artists being upended in Ukraine, {the marketplace} it was initially meant to launch on by no means being launched, and so forth. It does appear like we might even see the mission delivered later this yr, however some are involved that a lot of the curiosity in NFTs is behind us for now. The Council, nevertheless, has continued to resolve one drawback after the opposite on this mission, which is admirable, and we stay up for seeing the ultimate product.

Protocol Stats

Overview of Synthetix Q1 Stats: January 2023 — March 2023

Spartan Council

Q1 2023 Spartan Councilors: Adam, Cavalier, dsacks, Jackson, KALEB, SeliniCapital (representing Jordi), TerraBellus, William87

Together with their contribution to the achievement of main Synthetix milestones this epoch, let’s take a minute to evaluation every part else that the Spartan Council was capable of obtain in simply the final 3 months.

On the finish of final yr, the beta for Perps V2 was launched. It was instantly practical however didn’t help the big selection of property out there in V1, and was launched with very restrictive open curiosity caps. This was, after all, within the curiosity of protocol security and safety and gave the CCs the chance to stay take a look at the efficiency. By the tip of January, the CCs have been capable of make the entire essential corrections on the updates that have been all authorised in SIP-297 (which went out on the Mintaka launch).

Subsequent, February was a really busy month and commenced with a little bit of spring cleansing. SIP-293, which went out on the Sadr launch, deprecated numerous low quantity spot synths together with AAVE, LINK, DOT, ADA, MATIC, UNI, AVAX and SOL. Just a few days later, the Eltanin launch went out which carried over the remaining perps providing from V1 to V2, as outlined in SIP-295, and added ATOM, AXS, FLOW, FTM, NEAR, AUD/USD and GBP/USD perps markets, per SIP-2000.

In the direction of the center of the month, SIP-255, to burn charges slightly than distribute them to stakers, went out on the Schedar launch. The worth that these charges generate, nevertheless, continues to be distributed to stakers. However slightly than being distributed as an sUSD declare, the charges scale back the entire debt of the protocol, which is handed to stakers based mostly on the proportion of the debt they again.

The largest story of the month, and even perhaps the quarter, was the launch of V3. CCs have been working tirelessly to get the core system on mainnet and thru governance, and it was lastly deployed simply earlier than ETHDenver in February. There’s nonetheless fairly a bit of labor to be executed, however at this level, a lot of the main SIPs describing V3 perform have made it by governance and most of them have gone by audit as effectively. The CCs are engaged on processing the audit suggestions as we converse and have stated they count on the spot market implementation to be up as early as the tip of April. There’s at present nonetheless no utility within the core system, however anyone locally who’s thinking about constructing out tooling and dashboards can begin doing so now!

Lastly, we closed out the quarter with a SIP that may have in any other case not even been newsworthy if to not deliver consideration to how shortly the CCs and Spartan Council have been ready so as to add ARB to the record of Perps choices. Not too way back, even when the feed was already out there, including a brand new synth would have taken a minimal of two–4 weeks between the danger examine, governance approval and eventual implementation. ARB was added over a weekend. The truth is, the one delay was that the presentation needed to be executed twice as a result of not sufficient Spartan Council members have been out there for the primary presentation. Props to that agility and effectivity!

Grants Council

Q1 2023 Grants Councilors: ALEXANDER, Ana, CT, JVK, synthquest

And shifting on to our Q1 evaluation for the Grants Council, let’s check out what they labored on this epoch:

Beginning off robust, the Grants Council put out this very useful gizmo for Synthetix Perps. With this Funding Charge Data Bot, now you can get detailed Market Measurement, Charges, Velocity, Open Curiosity L & S, and so forth. to assist along with your superior trades. All it’s a must to do is go to the “funding-bot” channel within the Synthetix Discord, and kind out these instructions:

-Sort “/funding” for market of alternative: ETH, BTC, and so forth.

-Sort “/markets” for prime 5 markets

And, as a matter of truth, the Council has already put out a model 2 of this bot! There are actually extra instructions:

So shout out to all of the arbitrage merchants! Head on over to check out this bot and get an edge on different merchants.

And talking of Perps, it’s price noting that the Grants Council has labored very exhausting this quarter to help Perps V2. With their aforementioned data bot, in addition to well-received Twitter and Discord engagement, they’ve been profitable at serving to to boost consciousness, whereas additionally growing the utility and enjoyable of the product.

Like we talked about earlier, the stats web page was not nice when it first launched. The GC sought to make it higher and did so by a number of UX enhancements and plenty of hours of working with CCs. It’s now working significantly better than it was, and can proceed to get higher and higher all through V3!

The Grants Council has additionally continued to keep up their help in internet hosting and upkeep for varied Synthetix bots.

300 Lieutenant Stipend Sponsorship

Lastly, the Council continues to sponsor the stipend for the 300 Lieutenant, milkywave, who leads the 300 group and administers duties to assist develop and publicize the protocol. Proper now there’s an open process to ship in questions you could have for this epoch’s Spartan Council Election Panel that SNXweave is internet hosting, so make sure to get yours in!

What’s subsequent for the Grants Council?

I do know we’ve been speaking about this one for some time…and it definitely is a very long time coming. Ever since taking up this extraordinarily intensive and detail-oriented mission, the Grants Council has sadly skilled many setbacks with the individuals and DAO they have been working with. Nevertheless, they’re now within the thick of it with the ultimate particulars, and are hoping to launch throughout this upcoming quarter.

Making ready finances/objectives for supporting Synthetix V3 launch

Lastly, the Council has been discussing and rearranging their finances to have the ability to help the remaining V3 launch. Since they plan to complement their funding as soon as the NFT mission goes stay, they’ll have much more to work with on this regard.

Ambassador Council

Q1 2023 Ambassador Councilors: GUNBOATs, Kevin, mastermojo, Matt, MoneyManDoug

The Ambassadors began off robust with this primary quarter of 2023, logging in a number of applied SIPs, protocol integrations, and extra. Right here’s every part they completed over the previous couple of months:

✅ Spartan Areas

1. Synthetix V3 explainer (88 listeners, Size: 1 hour)

Friends: Afif, Noah, and dbThe Ambassadors sat down with the SNX Core Contributors who’ve been creating Synthetix V3, a revolutionary liquidity provisioning system, to dive deep into the system’s design and long-term objectives. V3 goals to perform what Synthetix got down to do a few years in the past by reworking the protocol right into a permissionless derivatives platform.Recording right here

2. Threshold (55 listeners, Size: 45 minutes)

Visitor: MacLane WilkisonMacLane Wilkison from Threshold joined to debate the protocol’s newly launched tBTC V2. On this name, listeners discovered how Threshold helps to decentralize BTC on Ethereum, the function of optimistic minting, customers inside the system (guardians/minters), and the roadmap for additional decentralization.Recording right here

3. Illuvium (92 listeners, Size: 1 hour)

Visitor: Kieran WarwickThe SNX Ambassadors hosted Kieran Warwick from Illuvium to debate the present state of net 3 gaming, Illuvium’s three upcoming video games, and governance inside Illuvium.Recording right here

4. Polynomial (42 listeners)

Friends: Gautham and AbhishekDuring the decision, the Ambassadors and their company coated matters such because the options of Polynomial Perps (which is constructed on Synthetix Perps), upcoming options, the advantages of constructing on prime of Synthetix, and the pivot from Earn to Perps.Recording right here

✅ Proposals

1. SIP-2000: Add ATOM, AXS, FLOW, FTM, NEAR, AUD/USD and GBP/USD to Perps V2 (creator: Matt)

This proposal added a number of markets to Perps V2, which was a vital step in making certain that merchants proceed to have entry to a lot of markets in Perps V2. These have been chosen as a result of they’re all supported by Pyth Community and Chainlink already, and didn’t require any extra ready interval.

2. SIP-298: Including APT, LDO, ADA, GMX, FIL, LTC, BCH, SHIB, and CRV to Synthetix Perps V2 (creator: Matt)

Together with SIP-2000, this SIP added 9 extra markets to Perps V2.

3. SIP-295: Including Perps V1 perps markets to Synthetix Perps V2 (creator: Matt)

Just like SIPs 2000 and 298, this proposal added a number of extra markets to Perps V2, all of which have been already out there for buying and selling in Perps V1.

4. SIP-294: Redirect inflation from Curve sUSD pool reward to Curve synth incentives (creator: Matt)

Lastly, this proposed growing the 6,000 SNX inflation emission entry (which is immediately despatched to Curve’s sUSD pool), to 10,000 SNX per week and redirect the inflation to the vault.In doing so, this SIP aimed to incentivize sETH, sBTC, and sUSD Curve swimming pools to advertise Atomic Swap adoption.The Treasury Council now has the discretion to determine which curve synth swimming pools to allocate this 10,000 SNX per week, and they’re mandated to spend your entire 10,000 SNX each week

✅ Governance

Voting Exercise might be adopted utilizing these hyperlinks:

1. Optimism Citizen Home badgeholder votes

2. Optimism Grants

Matt and Doug participated within the first ever Optimism GrantsCycle 10 roundup might be discovered right here

3. Influenced Optimism Delegates

The Ambassadors reached out to Ecosystem companions and inspired them to use as Optimism DelegatesVote outcomes hereBecause of this beneficial and diligent affect, the next companions are actually in Optimism Governance and have awarded 250,000 OP delegations: Lyra, Kwenta, Thales, Polynomial, and dHEDGE

4. LEAP proposal (Lyra)

Gunboats and Mojo created a LEAP for Lyra to combine Synthetix Perps V2LEAP-52 has handed and is awaiting audit

5. KIP proposal (Kwenta)

Mojo created a KIP for Kwenta to conform to the phrases specified by LEAP-43, and host Lyra Choices for six months

Optimism Governance Discussion board Exercise:

The Synthetix Ambassadors have a significant voice in Optimism Governance. Their respective Optimism Governance Discussion board Actions might be discovered utilizing these hyperlinks:

✅ Integrations

The integrations that the Ambassadors have initiated this quarter have been targeted on integrating Synthetix Perps.

Integrations outdoors of the Synthetix ecosystem:

1. Mux Protocol (in progress)

2. Nested (in progress)

3. Unidex

✅ COPY Updates

What’s subsequent for the Ambassadors?

Pursue additional progress methods for Perps V2, Atomic Swaps, Synthetix V3 and formal BD relationsExplore alternatives to scale synth provide (Instance: Beefy Technique)Elevated presence in Optimism governanceExpansion of affect in DeFi & DeFi GovernanceContinue to develop YouTube channel