Welcome to the first quarterly recap under the Spectra name 👋
Most of the following report contains Q2 2023 progress and developments undertaken while operating under the APWine name. Rest assured, these advancements are fully integrated and benefit the newly minted Spectra Ecosystem.
Without further ado, let’s dive into the key events.
The Rebranding & Opening Beta
On 10th July, Spectra was introduced as a project of dual nature - a permissionless protocol and its flagship interface. The news brought a refreshed attention to our project resulting in a decent following from large DeFi-Twitter accounts and various investment groups. Our community’s reaction to rebranding was 100% positive and supportive.
We are happy to see new community members interacting with each other on our refreshed Discord and providing us with more feedback on Beta. We are taking notes and taking action on the areas mentioned, such as a more detailed Portfolio breakdown and charts. Thank you to all of you who take the time to provide us with feedback as we build!
We also owe a big round of applause for this successful rollout to our trusted project partners and their community members, who were valuable contributors during APWine's era. You can find their logos on the rebranding video as well as on Spectra’s website 🙏
Opening Beta 🔑
Alongside the rebranding, we’ve opened the doors to Beta for everyone to experiment with features such as Fixed Rate, Yield Trading, LP Vaults, and to preview the long-awaited [Create Pool] feature.
A reminder of the importance of the [Create Pool] for Spectra protocol, which will allow for a permissionless pool creation for interest-bearing tokens with the ERC4626 standard.
Similar to how Uniswap popularized permissionless pools for ERC-20s which resulted in an explosion in DeFi trading volumes, we aim to replicate this impact for the growing landscape of ERC4626s. With this feature, Spectra can scale much more efficiently.
You can now glimpse this feature in Beta - beta.spectra.finance
Marketing/Comms
As we geared up for the rebranding, we decided to remain quiet to save the ‘ammunition’ for later use. Nevertheless, you could see our team shedding light on upcoming advancements, such as
Collabs
Despite sunsetting APWine, we are proactively reaching out and interacting with protocols anticipating integration at Spectra’s launch.
One of the collaborations that we are particularly excited about is our work with the leading lending protocol. We believe that there is a great opportunity to create an efficient and UI-friendly interface for Fixed Rates on top of it, allowing their user base to leverage Spectra protocol under the hood seamlessly.
Sunsetting APWine 1.0
Mid-May, the last pools on APWine expired, effectively ending this protocol era. The APWine front end is still accessible for those who have not yet withdrawn their funds.
V1 remains operational for the foreseeable future.
Events
Throughout April & May, we’ve had Gaspard appearing on the main stages of well-known DeFi events with a strong focus on educating attendees about the importance of interest rate derivatives infrastructure and sparking interest in the features our project unlocks.
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DeFi Summit Prague - Role of Interest Rate Derivatives Beyond Yield Farming and Speculation
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ETHZurich - Redefining DeFi's Risk Management with Interest Rate Derivatives
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ETHDAM - ‘Building on DeFi’ Panel
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Brussels Blockchain Week - on DeFi’s Adoption
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Web3 Berlin - Exploring the Next Frontier in Decentralized Finance.
In late May, we hosted the 4th edition of Web3 DNA in Paris with Morpho, Paladin, Sismo and Aleph as sponsors. This time, the panel was led by the man himself Jerome de Tychey. As in all previous editions, the room was packed with enthusiastic DeFi users and we had a chance to strengthen our relationship with top French builders.
Overall, our strong presence and awareness in Europe, which we have built over the past years through our physical presence in events and community gatherings as APWine, will serve as a great foundation for Spectra to attract users and capital from this continent and beyond.
These days we are looking forward to attending EthCC and showcasing Spectra to the DeFi community. We'll be marking our presence at the event with a booth, an engaging speech from Gaspard, and numerous meet-and-greets with users and potential collaborators.
Be the first to meet Spectra IRL at our booth and Future of France event.
Tech
Under the hood, we are undergoing a new round of internal and external audits to ensure they are solid for the protocol’s official launch.
The smart contract team has been focused on improving the new version of the protocol, integrating revenue streams and groundwork to simplify UX integrations. We've also been fine-tuning the governance model and working on simulations for Spectra’s infrastructure.
On the app side, we've made several improvements to make it fast, easier to use and it being 100% decentralizable. Our effort is now on making Spectra’s flagship interface understandable by beginners and advanced users.
Docs
Documentation is the backbone of every Defi project, and we are dedicating resources to building in-depth and resourceful documentation. Its current state allows Beta users to learn about existing features, deep-dive into use cases with practical examples, or learn about Spectra’s primitives that make it all possible. More additions are on the horizon!
Please note that Spectra’s branding alongside the new $APW logo is yet to be reflected across crypto info aggregators. Don’t hesitate to ping us on Discord with less-obvious platforms that we should inform about the recent rebrand.
That’s it for Q2!
Make sure you’re up to date with Spectra by following us on Twitter and joining our refreshed Discord.
Spectra Team