At Spectra, we’ve spent the last years building the most complete permissionless ecosystems for yield tokenization. However, despite the growth, we’ve encountered real UX challenges - some stemming from the inherent nature of fixed-term markets, others resulting from our own design choices.

This piece is about how MetaVaults aim to solve some of the toughest frictions we’ve faced.

But before we get into what they unlock, it’s worth being honest about what hasn’t worked and how we’re approaching it now.

Fixed-term pools gave us fantastic and powerful assets - Principal and Yield Tokens.

However, they come with a fundamental UX issue: every time a pool expires, it’s like rebooting your entire product.

Every new setup often requires fresh business development, liquidity bootstrapping, and coordination across teams - just to (re)ignite PT and YT trading.

And if you’re an LP? It can be tiresome as well. You have to manually pull funds, track expiries, and redeploy—again and again —while educating yourself about the new setup.

It’s becoming a full-time job, no?

This isn’t how the LP experience should work - especially when most are looking for passive exposure.

Here’s another brutal reality: a lot of our LPs don’t know if they’re winning.

Yes - winning.

Why? Because the standard LP token structure doesn’t actually tell them much.

Even a slight swing in the price of the PT or interest-bearing token (yes, even stablecoin-related) can make a user’s position appear to be down in the App - while they’re not.

Meanwhile, they’re quietly collecting pool yield in the background—but often they can’t tell, because a swing masks the LP Token’s net earnings.

We’ve seen it firsthand - users panic-exiting pools they were actually in profit on.

That’s not their fault. It’s on us—and the system we built around standalone LP tokens.

Not all the friction came from maturity structures. A big part of it originated from how the underlying infrastructure was initially built. Spectra’s previous AMM focused on permissionless access and maintaining liquidity within range, but it didn’t effectively concentrate liquidity.

This led to a common complaint: despite healthy pool TVL, users didn’t always get good quotes.

Improving our market’s efficiency remains a priority. We recently rolled out a major AMM upgrade that tackled some of these issues, and we’re continuing to iterate. Limit orders are in development, and additional improvements are planned following the launch of MetaVaults.

But even the best AMM can’t fix how users interact with expiring, fixed-term pools.

That’s where MetaVaults come in.

If you’ve seen Morpho’s curated vault design, this will sound familiar.

Users deposit once. A small, informed group—the curators—manage capital across connected pools, transparently and onchain.

That model works - it attracts users and capital more easily, and helps maintain traction while building a track record. And we’re not pretending we invented it—Morpho pioneered the curated vault meta, and they nailed it.

We’re following their lead, applying the same principle to the far more chaotic world of fixed-term markets.

As a MetaVault LP, you deposit once. That’s it. No more jumping from pool to pool, no more setting calendar reminders to roll over your position.

MetaVaults introduce the curator role to the Spectra ecosystem - a dedicated operator who handles active reallocation, rollover timing, and all the expiry/new pool setup logic under the hood.

In return, you get a single, receipt-style token, just like you’d expect from Morpho. It represents your full position, and importantly, all the yield it’s earned over time.

This shift—from fragmented pool-by-pool setups to a unified, long-running vault—has a real compounding effect:

• LPs, the backbone of protocol liquidity, are more likely to stay engaged

• Pool yield becomes clearly visible, not buried behind classic LP token price swings

• Spectra strengthens its ability to retain long-term users and capital

And there’s one more piece—something that’s subtle but makes a huge difference in user experience: as a MetaVault LP, you don’t deal with Yield Tokens at all.

No more wondering why your deposit was split into two assets. No more trying to figure out what the YT is worth, or whether you should sell it, or convert it back to LP, and when.

All of that disappears for liquidity providers.

Behind the scenes, Yield Tokens (YTs) continue doing what they’re designed to do—accumulate yield.

However, in MetaVaults, instead of leaving the yield idle, the curator redirects it, converting the ongoing yield accrual of YT into more LP tokens.

This reinjection loop - Yield Token → LP Token - creates a compounding effect.

Over time, this can push MetaVaults above classic, standalone LP setups in terms of base rate returns. It’s a subtle mechanic, but one with a clear effect - positioning Spectra’s yield opportunities at the top of rankings of trackers such as DeFillama.

MetaVaults don’t just simplify things for LPs - they also reshape the experience for teams and protocols.

Today, every new pool maturity kicks off a new round of friction:

• A fresh link to circulate

• Another wave of user education

• A temporary drop in TVL as liquidity rotates out

• And yet another uphill push to rebuild momentum and have people trade again

It’s repetitive, high-effort, and doesn’t scale.

Teams work hard (Spectra internal bd efforts included) to build traction, only to watch it reset every few months when a pool expires.

And during that expiry window, there’s a real risk: idle or confused liquidity gets reallocated—sometimes to competing pools.

MetaVaults change that by giving curators and projects a single, permanent vault address. One place to route users. One front door for liquidity and communication.

No more scrambling to explain what changed or where to deposit next. Just one link - easy to integrate, easy to reshare, always live.

This also gives community messaging a chance to compound. When your vault doesn’t expire, your comms don’t either.

One of the most important shifts MetaVaults bring isn’t just around UX. It’s the creation of a new business development layer inside the protocol, run by curators.

This curator layer amplifies Spectra’s BD efforts—expanding reach, deepening integrations, and compounding traction alongside the core team.

It also unlocks something new: curators shaping how and where Spectra’s core assets, like Principal Tokens, are integrated and adopted. And since many curators already operate within lending ecosystems like Morpho or Euler, they’re well-positioned to integrate PTs into those markets more efficiently.

Over time, this dynamic raises the quality bar. Curators looking to attract capital need to identify and create strong pools, align with protocols, and consistently optimize for performance. In doing so, they help grow Spectra’s TVL, deepen integrations, and enhance MetaVault yields across the board.

It’s a feedback loop that lives outside Spectra’s core team.

So far, vault curation as a formal role has mainly existed in lending protocols like Morpho and Euler, both of which have scaled impressively

That layer hasn’t existed in the yield tokenization space. MetaVaults change that.

With MetaVaults, curators step into a structured role in the fixed-term ecosystem: they manage how matured yield is rolled into new LP positions, control the timing of pool transitions, and shape capital flow over time.

In return, they earn fees—onchain, transparent, and built into the vault structure. It’s the foundation of a new business layer—where curators can own a part of the yield funnel, offer structured access to fixed-term pools and products, and build a visible track record around it.

This opens up a vast career landscape — from protocol-aligned DAOs to independent teams and entities.Curators can expand their reach, influence, and presence across user capital, operating with the same tools that power leading DeFi players in lending.

And yes—this will come with a dedicated Curator App by Spectra - designed for performance and reputation. It’s a familiar model—now applied where it hasn’t been before. And it’s coming soon.

We invite teams, DAOs, and dedicated curator firms to get in touch with us to learn more and be among the first to experience the Spectra Curator App.

@gpeduzzi - Gaspard Peduzzi, Spectra Co-Founder

@absoluteunitt - Absolute Unit, lead BD at Spectra

Spectra is a permissionless interest derivatives protocol, pioneering Principal and Yield Tokens. Access fixed rates, yield leverage, and earn on your liquidity. Create pools to unlock PT and YT derivatives for any yield strategy.

App:

https://app.spectra.finance/

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