While I’m glad the new Synthetix mainnet perps exchange didn’t have to go through this volatility during our launch, it did validate many of the design choices we’ve made.

Synthetix has always favoured traders, sometimes to our detriment. But we’ve always known it’s better to take losses on token holders than on traders, without traders you have no token.

Those who were around in the dark ages remember front running and oracle manipulation and other shenanigans that went on. SNX stakers always bore the cost of this and I think it’s one of the reasons our TVL continued to grow through DeFi summer. Traders trusted the mechanism.

SNX stakers will always be the last line of defence for any losses on the exchange. That’s part of the Synthetix social contract.

To be more specific on the upcoming exchange design the flow is: 1. Liquidations 2. SLP vault 3. Insurance fund (usdt) 4. ADL 5. SNX stakers

Having that last line of defence means we can afford to be less aggressive with ADL. Which means traders can be more confident they won’t have anything unexpected occur during high volatility.

I was trading through the entire nuke this morning, was 8am for me. Got liquidated on a couple of 7fig positions. Honestly everything worked perfectly, I was trading on the @infinex HL interface so I didn’t even have any performance issues. HL is solid.

But the life of a perps degen is hard enough without having to look over your shoulder and worry about what an exchange might do to you during a black swan.

The perps DEX wars are just getting started. Synthetix has seen some wild shit over the years and we know how to build an exchange that traders can trust. And we’ve optimised that even more with the new mainnet perp than on any other version.

Fifty of the best/most entertaining traders are going to get a chance to test out the new exchange before anyone else and we will all get to see what their trading experience is like in real time. It’s going to be one of the most fun campaigns we’ve ever run.

We are only a few weeks away from go live and I could not be more excited for Synthetix to become THE perp DEX of Ethereum.