State of SynFutures Q4 2024

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Key Insights

  • SynFutures launched the F token on Dec. 6, 2024. F is SynFutures’ governance and utility token, which can be staked to vote in governance, receive future airdrop boosts, and earn fee discounts on SynFutures.
  • SynFutures V3 facilitated $67.4 billion in trading volume in Q4, maintaining its position as the leading perp DEX on Base.
  • Average daily active addresses increased 9.8% QoQ and 590% YoY to 8,550. SynFutures’ increase in average daily active addresses reflects a growing demand for SynFutures existing and new product offerings.
  • Average daily unique addresses surged 338.5% QoQ and 401.3% YoY to 4,965. SynFutures’ user acquisition strategy of listing community-centric tokens is driving new user acquisition.
  • SynFutures introduced Synthia, an AI agent built on its own AI framework for DeFi. Synthia enables users to swap, transfer assets, and more using natural language commands through posts on X.

Primer

SynFutures V3 is a decentralized derivatives exchange on Base and Blast, with the deployment on Base occurring on July 2, 2024. In October 2023, the team raised $22 million in a Series B funding round led by Pantera Capital. SynFutures V3 utilizes the Oyster AMM, which integrates features of an onchain order book, moving beyond the traditional AMM model to provide a more dynamic and efficient trade execution framework. With single-token liquidity provision, this permissionless model allows listing pairs with any asset as collateral and enables users to trade any quote asset against any collateral asset. Theoretically, users could pair any combination of assets against each other. SynFutures’ Perp Launchpad further democratizes derivatives trading by enabling anyone to create perpetual futures markets for any asset. In addition, order management, matching, and executions occur fully onchain, unlike alternative models that depend more heavily on offchain controls. In Q4’24, SynFutures rewarded loyal users by launching the SynFutures governance and utility token, F. SynFutures also airdropped 7.5% of the supply to Oyster Odyssey points program participants as well as earlier users and community members. SynFutures plans to begin offering a second season of the airdrop to continue rewarding users in 2025.

For the purposes of this report, we will focus strictly on V3 data, as V1 and V2 were deprecated in February 2024.

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Key Metrics

Performance Analysis

Network Overview

SynFutures V3 continues to solidify its place as the top perpetual futures DEX on Base, facilitating over $67.4 billion in perp trading volume in Q4’24 across both Base and Blast. SynFutures V3 grew to 8,550 DAAs in Q4’24, a 9.8% QoQ increase compared to Q3’s 7,790 DAAs. V3’s average daily volume reached $732.7 million in Q4, peaking at $1.40 billion for the quarter on Nov. 12, 2024. YoY, all network metrics saw substantial growth, with average daily active addresses up 590%, average daily unique addresses rising 401.3%, and average daily trade count increasing 357.5%, highlighting strong user acquisition and the success of V3.

In Q4’24, SynFutures’ average daily unique traders increased from 1,132 in Q3’24 to 4,965 in Q4’24, a QoQ increase of 338.5% and a YoY increase of 401.3%. The number of unique traders rose significantly at the start of Q3, increasing in November when Bitcoin’s price rose from ~$67,000 to ~$108,000 in mid-December. The number of unique traders has remained stable at historically elevated levels while Bitcoin remained rangebound between ~$90,000 and $108,000. Trading volume during this period also maintained elevated levels compared to the beginning of the quarter.

To reward users choosing to trade on SynFutures during Q4’24, SynFutures launched multiple promotional campaigns, offering token rewards and incentives to participants. These included the BRETT giveaway, a 7,000,000 VND Giveaway in collaboration with Hak Research, and the BONSAICOIN campaign with $22,222 in rewards. Additionally, SynFutures partnered with KlimaDAO for a $20,000 reward campaign and hosted round 2 of the Lido trading competition, which featured $30,000 in prizes. Further incentive campaigns included the BLOCKLORDS LRDS trading campaign with $10,000 in rewards and the TRVL trading campaign, in collaboration with DTravel, offering $15,000 in prizes. These initiatives incentivized SynFutures’ loyal users and drove user engagement over the quarter.

Financial Overview

On Nov. 25, 2024, SynFutures announced the establishment of the SynFutures Foundation and the launch of the F token. SynFutures subsequently launched the F token on Dec. 6, 2024, with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. At the token generation event (TGE), 12% of F’s supply was circulating. The F token is a governance and utility token that allows holders to stake F to vote on governance proposals, receive a boost on future airdrop incentives, and provides fee discounts to stakers on SynFutures.

By the end of Q4’24, ~12.9% of F’s genesis supply was liquid, according to SynFutures’ vesting schedule. Looking ahead to Q1’25, an additional ~304.8 million F, or 3.0% of F’s total supply, is scheduled to unlock.

The key components of the Q1’25 unlocks include:

  • Protocol Development (9.1% of Q1 unlocks): Approximately 27.7 million F tokens will unlock to fund protocol development, including ongoing research and development, engineering, and implementation of new features and upgrades.
  • Treasury (49.5% of Q1 unlocks): Approximately 150.9 million F tokens will unlock to the SynFutures Foundation Treasury. This will support SynFutures’ long-term stability and development by funding the deployment of tokens for strategic partnerships and business development, covering operational expenses and new initiatives, and ensuring long-term sustainable development.
  • Ecosystem (41.1% of Q1 unlocks): Approximately 126.2 million F tokens will unlock to the ecosystem. These tokens will be used to create incentive programs to onboard new users, collaborate with strong partners, provide grants and funding for third-party developers, and drive community initiatives, hackathons, and other engagement programs.

The most traded quote assets on SynFutures are BTC and ETH, which accounted for 80.6% of total trades in Q4’24. Q4’24 averaged 38,038 daily trades, an increase of 44.8% QoQ. Throughout the quarter, SynFutures continued to aggressively list long-tail assets as part of an overarching growth strategy that prioritizes organic community-based tokens over aggressive incentives. Long-tail assets listed as part of this strategy in Q4’24 most notably included TAD, BONSAICOIN, BRETT, GOAT, ai16z, and PENGU.

SynFutures generated $13.6 million in fees in Q4’24. In June 2024, SynFutures launched the Meme Perp Summer campaign, introducing a fee discount promotion on major pairs such as BTC and ETH. Beginning on July 1, 2024, this promotion reduced taker fees for major pairs from 3 bps to 2 bps while maker fees remained at -1 bps. As of Dec. 31, 2024, this promotional period remains ongoing, and SynFutures has updated its fee structure documentation to reflect this ongoing promotional campaign. Additionally, trading fees for community listings consist of a 10 BPS fee for takers and 5 BPS for makers.

Ecosystem Analysis

SynFutures established itself as the leading perpetual DEX on Base in Q3’24 and has extended this accomplishment throughout Q4’24. SynFutures continued to significantly outpace competitors like Avantis, the third-largest perpetual DEX on Base by TVL. ApeX Omni, a modular, multichain, intent-centric trading platform developed by ApeX Protocol, unseated Avantis as the second largest perpetual DEX on Base by TVL in Q4, reaching $18.4 million in TVL. Throughout Q4’24, Avantis achieved $16.0 million in TVL and averaged $17.0 million in daily volume, while SynFutures averaged over $732.7 million in daily volume, reinforcing its position as the clear leader in Base’s perpetual DEX market.

SynFutures continued to execute its Base user acquisition strategy by prioritizing community engagement in Q4’24 with the listing of Base-native tokens. Base-native tokens that SynFutures listed during the quarter include BONSAICOIN, TAD, BRETT, VIRTUAL, ALB, LRDS, and cbBTC. Furthermore, SynFutures further supported the Base ecosystem in Q4’24 by listing the tokens of projects that migrated to Base, including KLIMA, GENOME, and TRVL, developing a robust product offering for the Base ecosystem.

Qualitative Analysis

Airdrops

In Q4’24, SynFutures rewarded its loyal user base by ending season 1 of the Oyster Odyssey points campaign, launching the F token, and distributing 750 million F tokens, 7.5% of the total supply, through the season 1 airdrop. The airdrop became claimable on Dec 6, 2024, and is claimable until March 6, 2025. At TGE, the F airdrop was worth $80.7 million. Eligibility was determined based on long-term engagement across SynFutures’ V1, V2, and V3; Oyster Odyssey points campaign participation and meaningful community contributions. To ensure the F token was distributed to faithful SynFutures supporters, over 153,000 addresses were excluded due to suspicious activity.

With the end of the Oyster Odyssey season 1 points campaign, SynFutures has teased the launch of a season 2 campaign scheduled to go live in Q2’25. The season 2 airdrop campaign will be designed to continue to reward SynFutures’s community, loyal users, and F stakers. F token stakers will earn a boost for the season 2 airdrop. However, as of this report’s writing, further details on the season 2 airdrop campaign have not been released.

Protocol Updates

Throughout Q4’24, SynFutures continued to refine its platform, enhancing user experience and improving product offerings. Updates across V3.11.0 and throughout Q4 included:

  • UI Enhancements: In Q4’24, Synfutures redesigned the platform to improve the user experience. Below is a list of the redesigned features to enhance user experience, accessibility, and community engagement.Key updates included:
    • Redesigned Market Page: This allows users to view multiple network pairs simultaneously, making it easier to trade and add liquidity from a single list.
    • Redesigned Odyssey Page: This redesign updated the Odyssey page so that users can see all campaign information in one place.
    • New UI Design: SynFutures updated the color scheme, choosing a brighter palette and adding meme elements to bring life to the platform, making SynFutures visually engaging.
  • Product Updates: In Q4’24, SynFutures launched additional products to make it easy for users to access yield strategies, launch perpetual futures markets, and provide concentrated liquidity. Product updates throughout Q4 included:
    • SynFutures Perp Launchad: The SynFutures Perp Launchpad enables anyone to create a perpetual futures market for any asset, similar to how spot markets function on DEXs. As of the writing of this report, the perp launchpad is only available for tokens on Base, but SynFutures plans to expand access to a broader range of assets. To support projects that use the perp launchpad to create a derivatives market for their tokens, SynFutures has allocated $1.0 million in grants to support their development.
    • Asymmetric Ranges for Concentrated Liquidity: This update enables liquidity providers to customize the price range on both ends of a liquidity position, bringing concentrated liquidity to SynFutures.
  • 2025 Roadmap: On Dec. 19, 2024, SynFutures released its 2025 roadmap. In 2025, SynFutures plans to expand into a platform that offers full-stack onchain financial infrastructure.
    • Q1’s goals include the launch of a spot aggregator for optimal liquidity and a Wealth Management Vault for passive yield opportunities.
    • Q2’s goals include releasing details on the season 2 airdrop campaign and the introduction of High Capital Boost (HCB) AMM strategies to enhance liquidity provisioning.
    • Q3’s goals include launching a Spot Launchpad and upgrading to SynFutures’ V3 perpetual futures platform.
    • Q4’s goals include integrating an AI trading assistant and establishing a unified liquidity layer across spot, perps, and wealth management.
  • 2025 Roadmap Progress: As of the writing of this report, SynFutures has already begun executing key initiatives from its 2025 roadmap, marking early progress in expanding its onchain financial infrastructure.
    • AI Framework for DeFi and the Launch of AI Trading Agent Synthia: SynFutures introduced its AI framework for DeFi, which is designed to automate and simplify trading interactions for end users and developers. The first phase launched Synthia, an AI trading agent that enables users to swap and transfer assets using natural language commands on platforms like X and Discord. Future phases will expand its capabilities, allowing users to deploy custom AI agents for trading, liquidity management, token issuance, and more.
  • Expanded Asset Listings: The quarter saw new listings, including TAD, BONSAICOIN, BRETT, GOAT, ai16z, PENGU, KLIMA, EIGEN, cbBTC, SUI, SolvBTC, ION, LRDS, VIRTUAL, GENOME, ALB, TRVL, BTCUSD, MOVE, and ME.
  • Strategic Partnerships: In Q4’24, SynFutures formed several strategic partnerships and integrations to expand its ecosystem, enhance user incentives, and increase visibility.

These partnerships include:

Closing Summary

SynFutures maintained its position as the leading perpetual DEX on Base in Q4 2024, facilitating $67.4 billion in trading volume across Base and Blast deployments. The conclusion of season 1 of the Oyster Odyssey points program, and the launch of the F token effectively rewarded loyal users and marked a key milestone in the platform’s decentralization. Average daily unique addresses surged 338.5% QoQ and 401.3% YoY, while average daily active addresses grew 9.8% QoQ and 590.0% YoY, demonstrating user growth and sustained participation. With plans for an expanded incentive program, new product offerings, and deeper liquidity solutions in 2025, SynFutures is positioned to strengthen its role as a leading onchain financial infrastructure provider.

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