Why is Synthetix (SNX) up 22% in the Past 24 Hour?

Decentralized finance protocol Synthetix has recorded an impressive 22% surge in price, pushing the token to a new high of $3.42 at press time. The price increase has driven Synthetix’s year-to-date (YTD) gains to an impressive 147%, placing it as one of the leading players in the crypto industry.

Launched in 2017 by Australian crypto entrepreneur Kain Warwick, Synthetix is a decentralized liquidity provisioning protocol built on Ethereum. The network allows users to create synthetic assets, such as crypto, fiat currencies, commodities, and turns them into tokens that can be traded on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Synthetix platform is widely used in the blockchain industry by networks such as Kwenta, Thales, Curve, and OverTime Markets. The protocol’s total trading volume has soared to over $47 billion while the Total Value Locked (TVL) has soared to over $798 million, according to its website. The total number of SNX stakers has also increased to over 44 thousand.

What is Driving the SNX Price Surge?

Synthetix’s impressive surge comes following the protocol launch of a new upgrade termed Perp V3. As per the announcement, Perp V3 will build on the success of V2, which has achieved a $30 billion milestone. The launch of Perp V3 is expected to introduce several new features such as multi collateral, cross margin, account-based access and other liquidation upgrades which will improve the protocol’s trading capabilities.

Notably, the launch and hype surrounding Perp V3 seems to have propelled whales and traders to drive the price of SNX to its highest level in over 15 months.

According to Data from the market analytics platform Santiment, whale transactions of at least $100,000 worth of SNX soared from three to 10 trades in the past 24 hours. Santiment also noted that the asset’s total open interest (OI) saw a 58% boost over the past day — rising from $28 million to about $44.3 million.

Another factor that played a role in Synthetix price surge is the growing popularity of DeFi which is attracting more investors to the sector. Synthetix as one of leading DeFi protocols is benefiting from this growing attention. Additionally, the overall bullish trend in the cryptocurrency market is also contributing to the token’s price surge.