Synthetix Review
MIT-licensed with a published fee schedule
of 10
Synthetix, now presented primarily as a perpetuals venue on Ethereum, publishes taker and maker fees from 0.05%/0.02% down to 0.017%/0% by volume, and licenses both its v2 and v3 contracts under MIT. Its backing, audits and governance are not stated on the pages read.
No money changes hands. This is a non-commercial project: no advertising, no sponsored placements, and no affiliate or referral links. Links to the services below earn us nothing. Every overall score is the plain average of the criteria shown on the page, so you can check the arithmetic yourself — see our rating methodology and how the site is funded.
Function
Perpetuals trading on Ethereum mainnet
Taker/maker fee
0.05% / 0.02%, down to 0.017% / 0% by volume
Fee basis
Notional value, not margin
Licence
MIT (v2 and v3)
Audits / backing / governance
Not stated
Scores
Each criterion carries equal weight. The overall score is the average of these 5 scores — (8.0 + 10.0 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 3.0) ÷ 5 = 5.4.
Pros
- MIT licence on both the synthetix and synthetix-v3 repositories
- Fees published: taker 0.05% / maker 0.02%, reduced by volume to 0.017% / 0%
- Fees charged on notional value, not on deposited margin, stated clearly
- A long-established protocol with a documented fee schedule
Cons
- No named audit firm is stated on the pages read
- What backs its synthetic assets is not stated on the pages read
- Governance and upgradeability are not stated on the pages read
- Now presented mainly as a perps venue, close to the excluded perp-DEX category
Open code and a clear fee schedule
Both the synthetix and synthetix-v3 repositories carry the MIT licence, and the fee schedule is published plainly: taker 0.05% and maker 0.02% at the base tier, reduced by volume to as low as 0.017% and 0%, charged on the notional value of each fill rather than on the margin deposited. That last distinction matters for a trader working out real cost, and stating it is to Synthetix's credit.
What is not documented
No named audit firm appears on the pages we read, what backs the synthetic assets is not stated, and governance is not documented. For a protocol of this standing those are notable absences, and they hold three of the five scores down.
A category note
Synthetix's current documentation presents it primarily as a perpetuals venue, which sits close to the perp-DEX category covered separately. It appears here for its historical role as a synthetic-asset protocol; the review scores what the current pages state.
Who builds it
Synthetix began in 2017 as Havven, founded by Kain Warwick, and rebranded to Synthetix in 2018. An early Synthetix Foundation was later dissolved in favour of on-chain governance: the protocol is now run by a system of elected bodies — the Spartan Council, protocolDAO, Synthetix DAO and others — with SNX stakers electing the council. That deliberate move from a foundation to staker-elected councils is one of the more thorough hand-offs to DAO governance in DeFi.
How it compares
Reserve
Tokenised index baskets under a permissive licence
Term Finance
Fixed-rate lending, six named audits, restrictive licence
dHEDGE
AGPL vaults with a deep audit list, now rebranding
Derive (formerly Lyra)
Options fees published in full, Sigma Prime audited
Maple Finance
Fee split published to the basis point
Goldfinch
On-chain credit, MIT, Trail of Bits audited
Index Coop
Per-product fees published, Apache-licensed
Nexus Mutual
On-chain capital pool, GPL-licensed
Ondo Finance
Thirteen named auditors on tokenised Treasuries
Sources
Scored from published primary sources rather than hands-on use. Every figure above comes from one of the pages below, on the date shown. Manufacturers change prices and specifications without notice — if something here no longer matches the source, tell us and we will correct it.
- 1.Synthetix — documentation — checked
- 2.Synthetix — trading fees — checked
- 3.Synthetix v3 — LICENSE (MIT) — checked
- 4.Synthetix — governance documentation — checked
Frequently asked questions
What are Synthetix's fees?
Taker 0.05% and maker 0.02% at the base tier, reduced by volume to as low as 0.017% and 0%, charged on notional value rather than margin.
Is Synthetix open source?
Yes. Both the synthetix and synthetix-v3 repositories carry the MIT licence.
Nothing here is financial advice. Editorial policy · How we score · How we're funded.