Introduction

On March 21st 2022, Thorchain introduced their version of synthetic assets called Synths. Synthetic assets are virtually tokenized derivatives that mimic the value of another asset. Synthetic assets, or synths, track real-world assets like stocks, commodities or even cryptocurrencies, and traders use them for various reasons such as taking advantage of lower fees, performing faster transactions and having access to 24/7 trading, among others. Normally Synths are backed 100% by the underlying asset. However, Synths are backed 50% by the underlying asset and 50% by the RUNE token using a liquidity pool. Because we are working with liquidity pools with two different assets, there is a risk of impermanent loss. However, Thorchain has set up a separate RUNE reserve to pay 1% of impermanent loss protections per day. This means that if one were to hold the Synth for 100 days, the user would be fully protected again impermanent loss.

This dashboard aims to provide inside into the daily number for the minting and burning of Synths.

Methodology

To find how many Synths are minted and burned every day, the thorchain.swaps table was used. Using this table, we can identify a mint of a Synth if the to_asset contains a '/'. We can identify a burn of a synth if the from_asset column contains a '/'. In order to compare different Synths, the to_amount_usd and from_amount_usd table was used to find the USD value of the Synth minted or burned.

Results

From this chart, we can see the daily sum minted in USD value by Synth. For example, we can see that on March 31st, a little over $30M worth of Synths were minted. We can see that BNB.BUSD, BTC.BTC and TERRA.LUNA account for most of the minting volume.

Next, we'll look at how much USD worth of Synths was burned by day. We can see that also BNB.BUSD, BTC.BTC and TERRA.LUNA account for most of the burning volume.

Finally, we'll also look at the Net minting volume of Synths. This is calculated by subtracting the burning volume from the minting volume per Synth per day.