In July, Base, this 'Digital American West', welcomed a major player: SynFutures. As of today, SynFutures has accumulated $26 billion in trading volume on Base, accounting for more than half of the market share in the Base ecosystem's PerpDEX track.
Recently, SynFutures launched the Perp Launchpad platform on Base, creating a brand new issuance model for perpetual contracts.
But before deconstructing this new toy, we must first understand a harsh reality: in the current market environment, the growth of PerpDEX encounters bottlenecks, and leading players like dYdX, Hyperliquid, GMX, and SynFutures have already divided the profitable perpetual contract varieties. What remains is either trading volume too pitiful to maintain or due to low pricing efficiency, it has become an arbitrage tool.
Against this backdrop of segmented tracks, SynFutures has chosen to take a different path to gain new growth space.
1. The innovation of Perp Launchpad: a one-stop perpetual contract launcher
Perp Launchpad provides liquidity depth and price discovery channels for the Restaking and Meme tracks through ultra-low Gas environment + ultra-thin spread capital efficiency + $1 million subsidy, attempting to capture incremental users mainly composed of on-chain Degens, creating a http://Pump.fun for the PerpDEX track.
With just one token, a perpetual contract trading pair can be launched without permission.
The biggest highlight of this model is:
--Reduced the entry barrier for the perpetual contract market
--Quickly establish depth through LP incentive mechanisms
--Utilizing Base's low Gas advantage for rapid deployment
Taking Lido as an example: the wstETH/ETH perpetual contract was launched only 2 months ago and has achieved:
--Cumulative trading volume: $260 million
--Peak TVL: $918,000 -- On-chain transaction number: 132,000
--Number of users: 1955+
2. Investor perspective: new sources of income and risk management tools
For on-chain Degens, SynFutures offers triple revenue opportunities:
--LP market-making returns (annualized up to 50%+) -- Cooperative community sharing
--Expectation of future token airdrops and point rewards
At the same time, it can help on-chain Degens manage Restaking assets and Meme coin risks.
But it is important to be cautious:
--The liquidity of the perpetual contract market often has strong cyclicality
--The price discovery process of newly launched trading pairs may bring significant volatility
--LP market-making faces the risk of impermanent loss
3. New toys for Restaking enthusiasts
SynFutures has chosen to cooperate with Liquid Staking leaders like Lido, which provides a new monetization channel for Restaking assets to some extent. We can foresee:
--More Restaking assets will be introduced into the perpetual contract market
--The liquidity of LRT tokens will be further enhanced
--May give rise to new Restaking derivative gameplay
SynFutures' data reveals an interesting phenomenon: BTC Restaking assets are becoming the new favorites in the perpetual contract market.
The performance of pumpBTC/ETH and SolvBTC/ETH perpetual contracts is particularly outstanding:
--pumpBTC/ETH 24h trading volume 429.3K, TVL scale 12M
--SolvBTC/ETH 24h trading volume 341.8K, TVL scale 5M
The TVL scale of these two trading pairs is close to mainstream pairs ETH/USDC. Why does this phenomenon occur?
--The BTC Restaking track is extremely hot, and funds need hedging tools
--The price correlation of native BTC and ETH provides a natural pricing benchmark for these trading pairs
--Competition among Restaking protocols is intensifying, leading to more speculative demand
4. Long-tail status of Meme coin perpetual contracts
Surprisingly, the performance of Meme coin perpetual contracts is relatively average and has not been sought after by the market like spot meme coins, with the data not looking good:
--BONK/USDC perpetual contract: 24h trading 7.7K, market-making depth 405.3K
--PEPE's perpetual contract: average daily trading volume fluctuates between 5K-10K, market-making depth maintains in the range of 300K-500K
--Other Meme tokens perform worse
Possible reasons for this phenomenon include:
--The combination of high leverage + high volatility has scared off traders due to excessive risk
--The speculative nature of the Meme coin spot market often leads to an imbalance in perpetual fee rates, which is unfriendly to traders
--The probability and magnitude of impermanent loss are relatively high, LPer needs to control risk exposure
Conclusion
SynFutures' innovation fundamentally reshapes the issuance paradigm of perpetual contracts. It is no longer limited to mainstream assets but opens the derivatives market to any token.
SynFutures' innovation not only lowers the issuance threshold of perpetual contracts but more importantly, it opens up an important value discovery channel: from 'blue-chip assets' like Restaking to 'retail favorites' like Meme coins, all can find their market pricing here.
This inclusive strategy, though risky, may indeed be the only way for perpetual contracts to enter the mainstream market. After all, sometimes the craziest ideas can create the greatest value in a bear market.
