On-chain Alpha Mining P1: Interpreting SynFutures' PerpLaunchpad, a brand new perpetual contract issuance model

Article source: NingNing

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 understand a harsh reality: under the current market environment, the growth of PerpDEX has hit a bottleneck, and leading players like dYdX, Hyperliquid, GMX, and SynFutures have already divided up the profitable perpetual contract varieties. What remains is either too little trading volume to sustain or has become an arbitrage tool due to inefficient pricing.

Against the backdrop of such a segmented track, SynFutures opts for a different path to gain new growth space.

1. Innovation of Perp Launchpad: A one-stop perpetual contract launcher

Perp Launchpad provides liquidity depth and price discovery channels for Restaking and Meme tracks through ultra-low gas environments, ultra-thin spread capital efficiency, and $1 million subsidies, attempting to capture incremental users primarily composed of on-chain Degens, creating the PerpDEX track's http://Pump.fun.

With just one token, you can permissionlessly launch a perpetual contract trading pair.

The biggest highlight of this model is:

-- Lowered the entry barrier to the perpetual contract market

-- Quickly establish depth through LP incentive mechanisms

-- Quickly deploy using Base's low gas advantage

Taking Lido as a case in point: the wstETH/ETH perpetual contract was launched just 2 months ago and has achieved:

-- Cumulative trading volume: $260 million

-- Peak TVL: $918,000 -- On-chain transaction count: 132,000

-- Number of users: 1955+

2. Investor perspective: new sources of income and risk management tools

For on-chain Degens, SynFutures offers threefold profit opportunities:

-- LP market-making income (annualized up to 50%+) -- Cooperative community sharing

-- Future token airdrop expectations and reward points

At the same time, it can help on-chain Degens manage risks associated with Restaking assets and Meme coins.

But it is important to be cautious:

-- The liquidity in the perpetual contract market often exhibits strong cyclicality

-- The price discovery process for newly launched trading pairs may lead to significant volatility

-- LP market-making faces the risk of impermanent loss

3. A new toy for Restaking enthusiasts

SynFutures chose to cooperate with liquid staking leaders like Lido, which in some ways provides a new monetization channel for Restaking assets. We can foresee:

-- More Restaking assets will be introduced to 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 of these two trading pairs is approaching mainstream pairs like 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

-- Intensified competition among Restaking protocols has fostered 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 as sought after by the market as spot meme coins, and the data isn't very impressive:

-- 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, with market-making depth maintained in the 300K-500K range

-- Other Meme tokens perform worse

Possible reasons for this phenomenon include:

-- The combination of high leverage and high volatility poses too high a risk, deterring traders

-- The speculative nature of the spot market for Meme coins often leads to imbalanced perpetual fees, which is unfriendly to traders

-- The probability and magnitude of impermanent loss are relatively high, and LPers need to control risk exposure

Conclusion

This innovation by SynFutures essentially 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 barrier to entry for 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 be the only way for perpetual contracts to move toward the mainstream market. After all, in a bear market, sometimes the craziest ideas can create the most value.