Synthetix leads this ranking, but can SNX really jump on the hype train now?

• Synthetix’s development activity underscores the network’s growing efforts to attract more users
• However, SNX’s declining performance was fueled by whales and institutional selling pressure

Synthetix was one of the most promising crypto projects during the 2021 bull run. Since then, however, it has struggled to stay in the spotlight as the DeFi segment becomes more saturated. Its native token SNX has also been in a downward spiral recently.

Can Synthetix make a comeback? Well, this DeFi protocol has been trying to maintain its relevance. Consider this: Synthetix has seen strong development activity recently, so much so that it has been ranked as the best DeFi protocol in terms of DA in the last 30 days.

A precursor to a big step for SNX?

The increase mentioned above could be related to some of the project’s recent announcements. The protocol recently announced a new integrator protocol called TLX that enables leverage trading. In fact, just two days ago, TLX announced that it had traded over $400 million worth of leveraged tokens.

Synthetix is ​​also reportedly working on a new Perps integrator. These observations suggest that there may be greater demand for SNX within the Synthetix ecosystem.

SNX has been on a bearish trajectory for nearly 5 months, with its price of $1.29 at press time representing a 75% discount from $5.28 – its highest price year-to-date, reached in March.

Source: TradingView

The price of SNX at press time appeared to be lower than during previous bearish phases, which begs the question: can it recover? On-chain data has revealed some interesting insights about the SNX token.

Whales and addresses and others …

About 98% of all addresses holding SNX were in the loss at the time of writing, while only 0.76% were in the money. This suggests that there was very little accumulation at or below the price level at the time of publication. This was consistent with the tally by holding time, which found that the number of HODLers decreased by 37,830,000 SNX over the past 8 months.

Source: IntoTheBlock

The number of SNX traders has increased over the past two months, indicating a preference for short-term price appreciation. As a result, SNX has been unable to maintain a decent uptrend. Meanwhile, ownership statistics showed that whales have contributed to the selling pressure over the past 30 days.

Whale addresses’ holdings decreased by about 7.3 million SNX over the past 4 weeks. Investor addresses decreased by 7.78 million coins over the same period. However, retail addresses recorded positive growth of about 490,000 SNX.

Source: IntoTheBlock

The takeover by retailers indicated a possible change in sentiment.

However, retail investors are unlikely to have much influence on the market. SNX could remain subdued unless we see a shift in whale and investor holdings in favor of accumulation.