On the first day, it raised over 50 million USD. A brief analysis of Synthetix founder's new project Infinex

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

On May 13, the comprehensive DeFi platform Infinex, created by Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, officially opened account creation and deposit channels, announcing that it would distribute 377 million governance points (GP) to all deposit users over the next 30 days.

As of the time of this writing, Infinex has absorbed over 57 million USDC in deposits through six Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, and Polygon.

Infinex: A Window to the Seamless DeFi World

From a positioning perspective, it is difficult to find a concrete application category to define Infinex. Although the industry generally describes Infinex as a decentralized contract exchange, what Infinex aims to do is far beyond that.

According to Infinex's own description, you can view it as a window to DeFi services—firstly, Infinex itself will be a non-custodial wallet covering multiple chains; secondly, users can access various integrated DeFi applications through Infinex; most importantly, throughout the entire Infinex usage process, a series of complex concepts such as wallet addresses, cross-chain bridging, mnemonic phrases, and gas will be abstracted away, allowing users to seamlessly access more DeFi-like applications without needing to understand or even know these concepts, just like using CeFi products.

The reason Infinex has often been associated with decentralized contract exchanges is that once officially launched, it will first integrate with Synthetix Perps V3, allowing users to engage in decentralized derivatives trading through the latter.

Infinex believes that the vision of the project is to bridge the experiential gap between CeFi and DeFi through the on-chain experience layer it creates, and then provide users with more tokens, more derivatives, and more innovative yield products by integrating on-chain DeFi protocols, ultimately serving its customers more effectively. This way, the market demand for CeFi services will significantly decrease, further promoting the popularization of DeFi.

Account Creation Process Experience

As mentioned earlier, the Infinex usage process does not involve common wallet service concepts such as addresses and mnemonic phrases; instead, users need to rely on a Passkey to create an account.

The Passkey is the only option for users to log into their accounts. When users create an account on Infinex, a public key and a private key for authentication are generated. The public key is stored on Infinex's servers, while the private key is stored on the user's own device. Both Passkeys are required for verification during login.

When users attempt to log in next time, the Infinex server will create an encrypted "challenge" using the public key and send it to the user's device. After verifying their identity using biometric technology, a PIN code, or a USB security key, users can sign the "challenge" with their private key to access their account.

The public key cannot be used to derive the private key, and since the user's private key is stored on their own device, hackers will not be able to log into the account without physical access, effectively preventing potential phishing attacks.

After clicking "Create," Infinex will ask users how they wish to store their Passkey. Mac users can simply choose to store it in "iCloud Keychain," and after a few minutes, the account will be created. The account interface after creation is as follows.

However, before making a deposit, users also need to set up recovery measures through "Settings." The optional recovery options include common Web2 account systems such as Google accounts and Apple accounts, as well as Web3 address systems like EVM addresses and Solana addresses.

After completing the above settings, users can start depositing into their accounts to accumulate governance points (GP). However, based on the current user experience during the deposit phase, Infinex still seems to rely on wallet addresses—users must transfer funds to a designated address.

Can GP Be Converted into Governance Tokens? The Answer May Not Be Ideal

Currently, the reason users actively participate in Infinex deposits is undoubtedly to efficiently accumulate governance points (GP). The potential benefits of GP mainly have two aspects.

Firstly, they can gain priority access to the future official release of Infinex. According to Infinex's description, over 200,000 whitelist applications were received during the project's development, so a screening mechanism is needed to determine which users will be granted priority access. In the next 30 days, Infinex will distribute 377 million GP to all deposit users (with a supply cap set at 600 million), and the users who accumulate the most GP will be the first to experience the integrated features when Infinex launches.

Secondly, there may be non-existent potential airdrop benefits. Although the points system (which even restricts supply) often has strong airdrop implications in the current trend of Points-Fi, Infinex mentioned in an early article released last September that "Infinex's interests will remain aligned with Synthetix, so Infinex will not launch its own token."

Overall, for a project like Infinex, backed by leading protocols and star founders, achieving such excellent data results on its first day is not too surprising. In the context of the rising concept of chain abstraction, Infinex's strategy of stripping away complex concepts and building a seamless experience aligns with the current market narrative trends. However, if Infinex truly opts for a no-token strategy, its subsequent incentive flexibility and community loyalty may face more severe challenges.