Syndicate's Community Token Launch Makes Waves

Syndicate, a flexible “community-owned” appchain L2 that gives developers and their communities control over network operations, made a splash this week as it deployed its native SYND token using a never-before-seen model.

Although the network associated with SYND is undeniably novel, the immense paydays scored by Aerodrome governance participants have taken the spotlight.

The SYND saga is already reshaping how crypto approaches new token launches, underscoring the pivotal role of liquidity incentives and elevating the short-term advantages token teams can gain by partnering with onchain MetaDEXs for yield subsidies.

Here’s why Syndicate’s fresh take on token launch strategies has everyone talking. 👇

🪙 Syndicate’s Token Tale

Using Base’s Aerodrome exchange, the Syndicate* team seeded an initial SYND/WETH liquidity pool pre-token launch. It then incentivized veAERO lockers with 1% of the SYND token supply to direct protocol emissions towards the SYND/WETH pool.

In the Aerodrome model, emissions directed by veAERO voters flow to liquidity providers as yield, while veAERO holders earn pool incentives and swap fees in exchange for votes.

By leveraging freshly deployed SYND tokens as emission incentives, the Syndicate team managed to attract $215M of veAERO votes, representing 18.68% of voting power and granting SYND-WETH liquidity providers over 875k of AERO emissions for the next week.

Irrespective of the fundamental value of SYND, the token’s short-term yield potential cannot be understated; holding the crypto asset is now a prerequisite to unlock AERO-incentivized yields as high as 84,000% on an annualized basis.

Billed as a “radically open, transparent, and decentralized model for launching a token that puts community at the center from day one,” the Syndicate token launch certainly rewarded veAERO holders. This group secured SYND allocations for their votes, which could be deployed to capture the artificially inflated liquidity provider yields they had voted to emit.

Reception for Syndicate's new token launch has been overwhelmingly positive on Crypto Twitter, and it is not hard to see why. In this new paradigm, token generation events can transform seed liquidity allocations into a positive sum game by utilizing “MetaDEXs.”

Although similar in concept to a standard token liquidity incentives program, Syndicate’s design produces guaranteed emissions for a fixed period of time in a non-native token, which serves to support token price as profit-motivated actors purchase SYND to farm inflated yields.

While there is room to criticize the exclusivity of the SYND launch, as the largest upside potential was restricted to veAERO voters, this can also be viewed as a strategic move that leverages the rewards only AERO emissions can provide.

The value of SYND tokens is heavily bolstered by the value of available AERO emissions at this time, and holders should expect prices to decline around the expiration of this emissions epoch, which ends on September 24.