SynFutures, a Singapore-based decentralized exchange (DEX) focused on perpetual futures, has raised an impressive $22 million in its latest funding round.
The funding round, which pushes SynFutures' total funding to $38 million, was led by Pantera Capital and also saw participation from SIG DT Investments, a subsidiary of Susquehanna International Group (SIG DTI), as well as HashKey Capital.
Perpetual futures are financial derivatives commonly used in cryptocurrency and commodity trading. Unlike traditional futures contracts that have a specific maturity date, perpetual futures do not have a specific expiration date, can continue indefinitely and can be traded at a profit, allowing traders to control larger positions than their initial capital would allow.
The fundraising announcement coincides with the unveiling of SynFutures' V3 platform, with a mainnet release scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023.
The updated V3 platform includes the Oyster Automated Market Maker (Oyster AMM) which runs fully on-chain.
According to SynFutures, an Oyster AMM will increase liquidity and capital efficiency in decentralized finance (DeFi) by integrating the ledger and AMM models into a single approach. It is probably the largest and best known AMM on the market Uniswap. Order book models are basically how centralized exchanges match buy and sell orders.
It allows listing any trading pairs without permission, including Bitcoin (BTC), stablecoins and major altcoins, NFTs, as well as indices. Built on Polygon – a blockchain network that facilitates fast and cheap transactions – the protocol ensures two-way liquidity, allowing users to supply only one token of a trading pair.
Rachel Lin, co-founder and CEO of SynFutures, said: “The readiness to meet the challenges of mainstream adoption underpins DeFi's ability to reinvigorate and strengthen the ecosystem. “SynFutures' V3 is designed to ensure that DeFi does not lag behind its competitors in SeFi and TradFi and that DeFi reaches its full potential, opening the door to mainstream and institutional adoption.
Derivatives trading and DeFi
Discussing the role of derivatives trading, the SynFutures CEO said that while the powerhouse of trading in TradFi and CeFi, which often heavily weighted spot trading, the derivatives infrastructure in Defy struggled to keep pace with the advent of institutional trading. Clothes.
“Following the surge in interest in DeFi after the CEX crash last year, DeFi has yet to break the yawning barrier that separates it from institutional players who still rely on variables in their financial strategies,” Lin told Decrypt.
Lin predicts a bull market will come next year due to geopolitical and macroeconomic factors, as well as the Bitcoin halving, but “institutions may not fully embrace DeFi because of this limited derivatives functionality.”
“If crypto markets experience explosive growth, DeFi's current lack of capital and liquidity will continue to hamper its ambitions,” she said.
To that end, SynFutures hopes that platform V3 will eventually “prove a tipping point” for the space.
Edited by Liam Kelly.
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