SIP-323: Adopt "s" prefix for Synthetix V3 asset tickers

Simple Summary

This is a proposal to maintain the current standard "s" prefix for all protocol issued assets through Synthetix V3 and reconfigure the current asset tickers to an "snx" prefix

Motivation

The aim of this proposal is to preserve the integrity of the Synthetix brand by not deprecating an extablished and well regarded set of asset tickers

The plan for Synthetix V3 involves a rebranding of the protocol-issued stablecoin to snxUSD. The rationale behind this plan is to establish a clear distinction between the stablecoins issued by Synthetix V2 and V3, respectively. It is believed that such a rebranding effort will help overcome the negative reputation associated with previous Synthetix stablecoins, which faced scalability limitations and peg stability issues.

However, I believe the community is not in agreement on the new ticker.

Recent events impacting the banking sector and the depegging of major competing stablecoins like USDC and DAI have improved the public image of sUSD. Additionally, I challenge the notion that rebranding to snxUSD will alleviate any lingering negativity associated with sUSD or other aspects of the protocol.

Reasoning

The main limitation of sUSD has always been its reliance on endogenous collateral to back its issuance. While there have been unjustified comparisons drawn between sUSD/SNX and UST/LUNA by some prominent DeFi builders, I concede that however unfounded these comparisons were, they cast an undeserved shadow over potential sUSD use cases

Recognizing that the primary issue with sUSD stemmed from its endogenous backing, it becomes clear that labeling the next iteration, which will not rely on endogenous collateral, with the prefix "snx" (referring to the ticker of the criticized collateral) would at they very least cause some confusion among users, and at worst, could be a significant mistake

One issue raised during the drafting of this SIP was that the entire Synthetix V3 nomenclature and code repository already contained asset tickers with "snx" prefixes. Much of that code had already been deployed on mainnet due to the fact that consensus supported using "snx" while Synthetix V3 was being architected. To differentiate between assets issued by V2 and V3 and maintain clarity, it is recommended to avoid reusing the "snx" prefix in the Synthetix V2 nomenclature

The proposed solution is to adopt the current standard for assigning asset tickers in Synthetix V3 while, reconfiguring all Synthetix V2 assets to include the word "legacy" in their respective tickers. The intention behind this change is to visually incentivize passive V2 asset-holders to explore these assets and the associated migration process, effectively fulfilling the protocol's objective of winding down Synthetix V2.

I'll conclude by stating that sUSD is a concise and widely recognized ticker that has become a staple in the DeFi space. Its acronym, representing Synthetix (or synthetic) USD, offers a clear description and is easily understandable. Considering that Synthetix V3 will introduce a better method of issuing "Synthetic" assets by leveraging exogenous collateral, it makes perfect sense to maintain the current standard with a lowercase "s" followed by the ticker of the underlying asset going forward and reconfigure the Synthetix V2 version of those assets to add a "legacy" suffix to the existing tickers

Technical Specification

• Set Synthetix V3 asset tickers to sUSD, sETH, sBTC + all other spot assets which are applicable

• Set Synthetix V2 asset tickers to sUSDlegacy, sETHlegacy, sBTClegacy + all other spot assets which are applicable

Configurable Values (Via SCCP)

N/A

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.