First published 12 March 2020. The token had worn the SNX name since the end of 2018. Expanded in October 2026 so a debt pool is not described as yield, and so a 2020 staking page is not described as the current rule. Synthetix is a set of Ethereum contracts for tokens that track a price. Kain Warwick is the person most associated with it. On 30 November 2018 Havven was renamed Synthetix. HAV became SNX. The project said the contract address did not change. A wallet that still says HAV is the same token with an old label, not a second coin. Ethereum without the jargon is the ledger. ETH pays the fee. SNX does not.
The original design locked SNX and minted a synthetic, starting with sUSD, a token aimed at a dollar. Minting took a share of a debt pool, the total value of every synthetic in the system. If the things those synthetics track rise, the debt can rise with them. Leaving meant burning the synthetic to clear the debt. That is not a savings account. Staking is a lock and a queue, not a savings account. A 2020 page that tells you to keep a collateral ratio and claim fees every Wednesday is that year. The ratio was a parameter governance could change.
In June 2026 the project retired that staking pool and said legacy sUSD would be wound down into SNX. A blog from the old system is not a claim you can still open. This page will not walk through minting a synthetic or collecting a conversion. SNX on Optimism is not the Ethereum token. What is Optimism (OP)? is that rollup. What is Uniswap (UNI)? is one exchange. A synthetic is a price tracker inside these contracts, not the asset it is named after. The wrong network is still the wrong city. Nothing here is an instruction to mint, to stake, or to buy SNX.
