What Is Synthetix? The Ethereum Perps Exchange, SNX and How It Works

The Synthetix Exchange matches orders off-chain in a central limit order book and settles the results on Ethereum ¹. In practice it looks like a centralized exchange's trading screen — bids, asks, price-time priority, maker and taker roles — while collateral stays in smart contracts rather than with a company ¹. See order types and CEX vs DEX for background.

The basic flow, as documented ¹⁷:

1. Connect an EVM wallet such as Rabby or MetaMask to exchange.synthetix.io on Ethereum mainnet.
2. Create a trading account by depositing collateral. USDT counts at full value; other supported collateral, such as WETH, counts after a "haircut" discount.
3. Choose a market, set leverage, and place a market, limit, stop, TWAP or scaled order.

All positions in one sub-account share a single collateral pool (cross-margin). Profit and loss, fees and funding all settle in USDT, so a trader holding mainly WETH can end up with a negative USDT balance. The protocol treats that as debt and can force-convert collateral ("auto-exchange") at a higher fee if limits are breached ⁷.

Pricing. The index price comes from Coin Metrics, updated about every three seconds; a smoothed mark price drives margin and liquidations ⁹.

Funding. Funding accrues every hour but is shown as an 8-hour rate. When the perp trades above the index, longs pay shorts, and the reverse. Caps are ±2% per 8 hours on BTC and ETH and ±4% on SOL ⁶.

Liquidation. If your adjusted account value falls below the maintenance margin, positions can be reduced, closed or transferred to the exchange's own liquidity accounts, and a clearance fee of 0.5%–2% of notional applies, depending on the market. If an account goes bankrupt, auto-deleveraging can close profitable opposing positions as a last resort ⁴⁸.

As of the docs' February 2026 update, ten USDT-settled perps are listed: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ZEC, XMR, FARTCOIN, 1000PEPE and PUMP ⁴. Maximum leverage is 50x on BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and DOGE, 25x on ZEC and 1000PEPE, and 10x on the most volatile listings. Each market also has an open-interest cap. The December 2025 launch announcement mentioned up to 100x; the current docs table is lower ⁴¹⁵.

Synthetix charges trading fees on the notional value of each fill, not on your margin ⁵:

The docs' own example: a 0.5 BTC market order at 100,000 USDT is 50,000 USDT notional, so the taker fee is 25 USDT ⁵. Other costs to expect: hourly funding, a per-asset withdrawal fee shown before you confirm, swap fees when converting collateral to USDT, a liquidation clearance fee if liquidated, and Ethereum gas paid in ETH for deposits and withdrawals ⁵¹⁰. See crypto trading fees.

No account registration or KYC is required; your wallet is your login ¹. Use of the interface is governed by terms with Molon Labe Inc., a Panamanian corporation, under Panamanian law with mandatory arbitration and a class-action waiver ¹⁴. The terms exclude sanctioned persons and anyone located in or resident of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk or Crimea, or other comprehensively embargoed jurisdictions, and anyone whose use would break local law ¹⁴. They do not list other countries by name, so whether perpetual futures trading is lawful where you live is your own question to check.

Deposits and withdrawals are Ethereum mainnet transactions. The deposit window shows any per-asset minimum and maximum account deposit in force; at launch, deposits were capped at $100,000 per user ¹⁰¹⁵. You can withdraw only "available margin" — collateral not needed for open positions or to cover USDT debt. Withdrawing while positions are open moves your liquidation price closer ¹⁰. Each asset is withdrawn separately.

SNX was originally staked to back the Synthetix debt pool and mint sUSD. That system is gone. The final "420" staking pool closed on June 19, 2026 under SIP-423; staked sUSD and SNX were returned to wallets in June 2026, and legacy sUSD was deprecated ¹³. Holders of sUSD at the June 26, 2026 snapshot are eligible for a 1-sUSD-to-4-SNX conversion whose claim window opens on June 26, 2027, per the docs ¹³. Former stakers who still had debt are under a separate repayment framework ¹³.

The docs describe SNX's current uses as limited: ecosystem participation, settling legacy debt, and the sUSD conversion. Buybacks or a new staking model are listed only as possible future ideas ¹². SNX trades on centralized and decentralized exchanges; the docs publish its contract addresses on Ethereum (0xC011a73ee8576Fb46F5E1c5751cA3B9Fe0af2a6F) and Optimism ¹². KWENTA and TLX tokens, from two projects folded into Synthetix, can be migrated to SNX on a vesting schedule ¹⁹.

• 2018: Launched as Havven, a decentralized stablecoin project ³.
• 2019: Synthetix v2 lets SNX stakers mint sUSD and trade synthetic assets ("synths") ³.
• Layer-2 era: Perps v2 on Optimism, then Synthetix v3 with cross-margin on Base and Arbitrum ³.
• 2025: Arbitrum (June 13) and Base (July 7) vaults deprecated ¹¹; a proposal to acquire Derive was withdrawn after community pushback ¹⁸.
• December 17, 2025: Synthetix Exchange launches on Ethereum mainnet ¹⁵.
• June 2026: Legacy 420 staking closed; sUSD retired ¹³.

Governance has been run through an elected Spartan Council that includes Kain Warwick ¹⁸.