Adapters

Adapters are modular contracts that allow Symbiotic vaults to deploy capital across different yield-generating strategies through a standardized interface. Rather than integrating directly with individual applications or external protocols, vaults allocate capital to adapters, which abstract the underlying implementation while exposing a consistent deposit, withdrawal, and accounting interface.

This modular architecture allows new strategies to be added without modifying the vault itself. Curators can combine multiple adapters within a single vault, dynamically adjusting allocations as market conditions change while preserving a unified accounting and security model.

How Adapters Work

Vaults never interact directly with external protocols or applications. Instead, the Universal Delegator allocates capital to one or more adapters according to the curator's strategy.

Each adapter is responsible for deploying capital, tracking the allocated position, processing withdrawals, and reporting the current asset value back to the vault. From the vault's perspective, every adapter behaves identically, regardless of the underlying strategy.

This abstraction allows a single vault to simultaneously support multiple applications and external protocols without introducing protocol-specific logic into the vault itself.

Adapter Types

App Adapters

App Adapters connect vaults to applications built on Symbiotic. They allow applications to access vault collateral while preserving Symbiotic's allocation, accounting, and slashing framework.

Depending on the application, the allocated collateral may provide economic security for infrastructure, collateral for underwriting, credit facilities, settlement guarantees, or any other application-specific use case. Operators interact with these applications according to the policies defined by the curator and the application itself.

Liquidity Adapters

Liquidity Adapters deploy idle vault capital into external yield sources outside the Symbiotic ecosystem. These adapters maximize capital efficiency by allowing vaults to earn additional yield whenever collateral is not actively utilized by applications.

Examples include DeFi lending protocols such as Morpho or Aave, as well as RWA redemption strategies where vault capital provides instant liquidity to asset holders in exchange for redemption discounts.

Each Liquidity Adapter implements its own allocation and withdrawal logic while exposing the same standardized interface to the vault, allowing curators to combine multiple external strategies within a single portfolio.