SNXweave Weekly Recap 115

SNXweave -

November 15, 2023

The following post contains a recap of news, projects, and important updates from the Spartan Council and Core Contributors, as well as the Grants Council and Ambassador Council from last week.

👉TLDR

  • SIP to deploy V3 on Base is close to a Goerli testnet deployment
  • SIP to enable USDC for Andromeda on Base is in draft
  • Buyback and burn proposal discussion between SC and CCs
  • Audits for two key Perps V3 updates are currently in progress, and audit feedback for L1 Perps is being implemented (SIP coming soon)
  • Descoped V3 features: Cross-margin will be live at launch, but multi-collateral portfolio margin will not be available (work is still in progress to offer support for more volatile assets — expected within a month). All of the other major features promised in V3 will be going live with the first V3 release.
  • Forward-looking partnerships and ecosystem alignment discussion between SC and CCs
  • SIP-345: SNX Buyback and Burn presentation recap
  • SIP-346: Perps V3 Integrator Incentive presentation recap
  • SIP-2035: List TIA on Synthetix Perps presentation recap
  • SIP-2039: List MEME on Synthetix Perps presentation recap
  • SIP-2040: List ANKR, FET, GRT on Synthetix Perps presentation recap
  • Grants Council update: new bot running in Discord (ETH / BTC Ratio), GC is proposing a retroactive grant for the Telegram Bot developer, Watcher page now includes favorites and team is discussing additional exciting social/user features to add to the site.

Spartan Council and SIP updates

Present at the November 8, 2023 Spartan Council Weekly Project Sync:
Spartan Council: Adam, Burt, cyberduck, Genefaesius.eth (Gene), Jackson, Kain, Millie, ml_sudo
Core Contributors: Afif, Cavalier, David, joey, jz, KALEB, Leo, Matt, meb, Rafa, Steve, troy

First up, the SIP to deploy V3 on Base is close to a Goerli testnet deployment, and the SIP to enable USDC for Andromeda on Base is in draft. The Council also had a discussion about the buyback and burn proposal, with Gene voicing some concerns as to whether the right approach was chosen. Millie informed the group that, after some research, Yearn appears to already have a contract written that can execute purchases based on the oracle price of SNX. This SIP was actually presented last week, so let’s briefly review that:

SIP-345: SNX Buyback and Burn

  • After paying integrators, this proposes splitting the fees remaining between Base LPs and SNX stakers, where stakers would receive the rewards via a buyback and burn mechanism
  • Fees would be used to purchase SNX at the current market price via an already developed Yearn smart contract (as mentioned previously)
  • Burning would happen periodically as a manual process
  • This was picked due to its low complexity as a test of a potential fee sharing mechanism on Base
  • Gene is concerned that a buyback and burn is not the most direct way to distribute value back to stakers
  • Millie chimed in adding that this is just the first of what could be many deployments to different chains and it becomes very technically challenging to bring all those earnings back to a single chain
  • Kain suggested a possibility where the treasury could be the only wallet capable of selling SNX, which would slowly deplete treasury holdings over time and further decentralization objectives
  • There was also some discussion about how this should be coordinated with a possible end to inflationary rewards

Next, audits for two key Perps V3 updates are currently in progress, and audit feedback for L1 Perps is being implemented (the SIP is coming soon).

In other discussion, the SC and CCs talked about descoped V3 features. Kain asked for a list of any of the promised features in V3 that had been descoped. Cross-margin will be live at launch, but multi-collateral portfolio margin will not be available, as work is still in progress to offer support for more volatile assets (multi-collateral portfolio margin support is expected within a month). The code will still be going live with the V3 launch, but only with USDC collateral enabled. All of the other major features promised in V3 will be going live with the first V3 release.

While on the topic of possible future V3 deployments, there was also a talk regarding forward-looking partnerships and ecosystem alignment, where Kain shared some ecosystem developments with the SC. Originally, Optimism planned to be a “superchain” L2 that attracted a large portion of the rollup user base. The crypto landscape has changed dramatically, and Optimism has shifted to a strategy of getting as many OP stack chains deployed as possible. However, this shift in strategy has changed the incentives they offer as well.

At the beginning, Synthetix hoped to be the premier Perp product on what was supposed to be a popular L2. Synthetix’s strategy now, as it relates to the Optimism partnership, may need to be reconsidered to optimize protocol value. This will fall to the Treasury Council to negotiate, but since the Spartan Council guides protocol improvement, there needs to be some conversation between the two on the longer-term vision.

Lastly, on top of the buyback and burn presentation, there were a few other SIPs presented last week (all presented by Burt). So let’s review them!

SIP-346: Perps V3 Integrator Incentive

  • This SIP proposes an integrator fee share mechanism for Perps V3, where integrators earn a 20% base fee in sUSD from trades executed through a Synthetix Perps integration
  • The process is fairly straightforward — integrators would sign up for a tracking code to track the markets they’ve deployed and would receive their 20% first
  • The hope is that this provides the best solution to incentivize scaling of Perps markets because they’ll have a vested interest in producing more volume

SIP-2035: List TIA on Synthetix Perps

  • Proposes listing TIA on Synthetix Perps
  • Celestia is an upcoming Cosmos cryptocurrency with a focus on data sampling for other blockchains. It launched on October 17, which provides an early opportunity to offer TIA on Synthetix Perps

SIP-2039: List MEME on Synthetix Perps

  • Proposes listing MEME on Synthetix Perps

SIP-2040: List ANKR, FET, GRT on Synthetix Perps

  • Proposes listing Ankr Network, Fetch.ai and Graph Protocol on Synthetix Perps

All of these markets were chosen based on active volume on other exchanges and in line with Synthetix’s objective of continuing to capture trading volume from new markets. Listing for all three of these SIPs will require Pyth and Chainlink feeds.

Grants Council

Present at the November 9, 2023 Grants Council meeting:
Grants Team: ALEXANDER, CT, MoneyManDoug, sunny, synthquest

In Grants Council updates, in case you missed it, there’s a new bot running in the Synthetix Discord! It’s the ETH / BTC Ratio Tracking Bot:

Speaking of bots, Alex is proposing a retroactive grant for the Telegram Bot developer. We love our bot devs ❤

Also, thanks to the GC, the watcher page now includes favorites. You’ll be able to compile all your favorite traders in one place and tag them with name overrides. Try it out! The team is also discussing some additional exciting social/user features to add, and are working with devs on many new elements of the Watcher Site.

Meanwhile, Sunny is following up with the “Solid-Insight” AI Support/Info service and reviewing the last piece of functionality for the Overtime V3 project, and CT is continuing to reach out to other protocols to remind their OGs to come mine the Spartan Synthverse NFTs.

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SIP/SCCP status tracker:

SIP-336: Deploy V3 Core on Base, Status: approved

SIP-348: Enable USDC for Andromeda on Base, Status: draft

SIP-345: SNX Buyback and Burn, Status: draft

SIP-346: Perps V3 Integrator Incentive, Status: draft

SIP-2035: List TIA on Synthetix Perps, Status: draft

SIP-2039: List MEME on Synthetix Perps, Status: draft

SIP-2040: List ANKR, FET, GRT on Synthetix Perps, Status: draft