The Cycle of History: From Forced Migration to Strategic Return
Looking back to 2022, Synthetix's departure from the mainnet was a matter of survival. At that time, gas costs were frequently exceeding 100 GUI, making the cost of opening a simple trade hundreds of dollars. Synthetix spearheaded the Tier 2 movement, deeply integrating with Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base to find a suitable niche for high-frequency trading.
However, Warwick noted in his announcement that while L2s solved the "borrowing" problem, they introduced severe liquidity variability crises. Assets became scattered across isolated networks, increasing price differentials for large trades and creating the ever-present threat of bridge risk.
By mid-2025, the landscape had shifted. Thanks to the maturing of the L2 offloading and multiple incremental increases in the gas limit on the mainnet, average fees plummeted to 0.71 GUI—a staggering 26-fold decrease from the same period the previous year. This low-cost environment, combined with the unprecedented security and depth of the core network, has made "Back to L1" a dream that has become a necessity.
