Context
DeFi has undergone a structural evolution over the past few years, moving from monolithic protocols to modular, curator-driven ecosystems.
In the early stages of DeFi (2018–2021), protocols like Aave, Compound, and Lido dominated the landscape. Each protocol was vertically integrated: the same team designed the product, operated the infrastructure, managed risk, and determined how rewards were distributed.
The role of the curator — someone who builds and manages financial products — was played entirely by the protocol itself. As a result, user experience was predictable but limited. Strategies were rigid, and reward opportunities were bound to the design choices of a single team.
From 2022 onward, this started to change.
New protocols such as Morpho, EigenLayer, and Symbiotic introduced permissionless infrastructure layers, allowing independent curators to build and deploy their own vaults and strategies on top of shared infrastructure.
This shift gave rise to what we now call curator-led DeFi: an ecosystem where third-party experts design reward-bearing products with diverse risk-return characteristics.
These curators:
Choose assets and risk parameters
Combine reward sources across protocols
Manage vault upgrades and performance
Create structured products, including those backed by real-world assets
As this design space expands, so does the potential for sustainable, diversified, and composable rewards. But it also introduces significant complexity — and that’s where Inception steps in.
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