In 2025, the so-called “DeFi mullet” thesis is scaling in practice: a consumer or institutional front end in the foreground, on-chain infrastructure behind it. Morpho has become one of the engines of this shift by plugging directly into customer journeys at major platforms and regulated actors. The numbers set the scene: by September 2025, deposits on DeFi lending protocols reached a record $138B, evidence that on-chain credit is no longer a niche but a dominant Web3 use case. Over the same period, Morpho more than doubled deposits year over year to $11.5B, and crossed the $1B mark in loans issued through a single centralized-exchange integration. This traction didn’t happen “by magic”: it stems from a design where intent-based matching enables fixed-rate, fixed-term loans while curated Vaults absorb risk and liquidity complexity. It also comes from an explicit “infrastructure” stance: Morpho doesn’t try to replace institutional front ends; it powers their savings and credit products with a transparent, auditable, composable on-chain engine. @Morpho Labs 🦋 #Morpho $MORPHO

Coinbase: bitcoin-backed loans, delivered by Morpho

The most visible example is Coinbase. Since the launch of crypto-backed loans, users borrow USDC against bitcoin from within the Coinbase app, but the loan itself is originated on Morpho (on Base). From the user’s perspective, everything happens in Coinbase’s UX; under the hood, loans are matched and secured by immutable smart contracts. At launch (January 2025), the public guardrails were $100,000 USDC maximum for most U.S. clients (excluding New York) with a liquidation band around 86% LTV clear markers to size safety margins. The integration was presented as the largest direct connection between a regulated company and a DeFi protocol, and the numbers bore it out: within months, cumulative BTC-backed loans exceeded $1B via Morpho. Strategically, a major exchange gets instant credit without holding client funds or loading its balance sheet, while preserving regulatory clarity. For Morpho, it proves that an on-chain offers book can power mass-market volumes at scale.

Gauntlet: from risk consulting to on-chain curation

In February 2024, risk specialist Gauntlet formally left Aave after governance frictions and announced a partnership with Morpho to launch vaults and risk policies tailored to isolated markets. The message is twofold: governance matters (oracle choices, LLTVs, thresholds), and the craft of an on-chain risk manager is moving toward curating strategies rather than maintaining a single monolithic pool. On Morpho, Gauntlet publishes differentiated profiles, tunes relative caps (by asset family) and absolute caps (per market), and implements “risk-off” mechanics (ensuring DEX depth for liquidations) versus “yield optimization.” There’s an industry read, too: risk stewards are becoming “allocation managers” for distributors wallets, exchanges, fintechs who want readable savings products with public rules, not opaque settings at a DAO’s discretion. Result: institutional-grade strategies ready for wide distribution, and a concrete bridge between regulatory requirements and on-chain programmability.

Ethereum Foundation: deposits into Morpho vaults and a migration to Safe

The Ethereum Foundation validated “institutional DeFi rails” by example. In mid-October 2025 it deposited 2,400 ETH (≈ $10M) and ~$6M in stables into Morpho vaults to optimize treasury an explicit signal of confidence in on-chain tooling and its safeguards. Days later, it migrated its entire treasury (over 160k ETH, more than $650M) to Safe{Wallet}, the institutional multisig standard, to participate in DeFi while maintaining robust signing processes. The sequence speaks volumes: start with a modest, audited vault deployment; then shift strategic accounts to a recognized multi-signer custody. For Morpho, this underscores how curated vaults plus a strong audit stack enable institutional treasury management with continuity and traceability. For the Ethereum ecosystem, it’s proof that open-source tooling lets foundations themselves allocate and diversify without closed intermediaries.

Société Générale (SG Forge): bank-grade stablecoins on Uniswap…and Morpho

In September 2025, SG Forge (Société Générale’s crypto arm) announced integrating its EURCV and USDCV stablecoins into DeFi infrastructure. Institutional clients can trade these stables on Uniswap, then lend/borrow via Morpho vaults. The benefit is twofold. A bank now has a transparent rail to price and distribute credit using a permissionless, auditable protocol. Institutions can allocate treasury surpluses into curated strategies with explicitly parameterized exposure limits by asset, oracle, and risk class. This is no longer a sandbox pilot it’s operational use of DeFi building blocks, with a regulated banking asset meeting an on-chain marketplace. Against the backdrop of lending becoming a dominant DeFi use case, the approach gains credence; as regulated issuers tokenize money and securities, open yet curated lending markets emerge as an alternative to classic bank balance sheets.

PayPal (PYUSD): a curated vault for a mainstream stablecoin

As early as February 2025, a PYUSD vault launched on Morpho, curated by Steakhouse Financial. The aim: let liquidity providers earn interest by lending PYUSD against blue-chip collateral (wstETH, WBTC) and, over time, tokenized real-world assets. Beyond the product line, the signal is strong: a mainstream stablecoin finds a credible on-chain counterparty in a modular lending engine where risk profiles are published and limits are numeric. Steakhouse’s curation is institutional in style caps, oracles, relative limits by asset family and makes its risk-off versus yield trade-offs explicit. For distribution, a PYUSD vault enables integrated flows: a wallet offering “Earn,” an exchange offering “Borrow,” and a shared Morpho layer as the engine. Practically, it unifies market depth for a widely distributed stablecoin and accelerates useful adoption beyond payments alone.

Sei: multi-chain rollout and new liquidity basins

In October 2025, Morpho went live on Sei, with a simple promise: bring enterprise-grade lending infrastructure to an L1 seeing fast growth in active addresses and real-time use cases. For Sei, that means native assets eligible for lending markets and curated vaults, ready-made integrations for market makers, and cross-chain routing of demand without duplicating liquidity. For Morpho, it’s one more entry point for distributors wanting to price fixed-rate tickets or to activate compliance-aware offers by jurisdiction. This launch fits a broader strategy: multiply access doors (Sei, but also Base, OP Mainnet, etc.) while keeping aggregated depth in the engine. Public mentions of $12B+ in managed deposits at announcement time underline the ambition: make Morpho the credit brick spanning EVM ecosystems and now beyond.

Cronos & Crypto.com: vaults that reach the “mass market”

In early October 2025, Crypto.com and Cronos announced a partnership with Morpho: the first vaults are slated for Q4 2025 on Cronos, with loans collateralized by wrapped versions of major assets (e.g., CDCBTC, CDCETH) and a credit journey integrated into the exchange front end. It’s the “DeFi mullet” incarnate: centralized UX up front, on-chain market in back, unified depth rather than fragmentation. Market dynamics are favorable: as of Oct 2, 2025, DLNews noted Morpho at $11.5B in deposits, up 121% YTD, while aggregate DeFi lending deposits reached $138B. Shortly after, another piece detailed Société Générale plugging its stables into Morpho. For Crypto.com, it’s the chance to become the second exchange to offer Morpho-backed loans. For Morpho, it’s access to millions of users, with custody and KYC handled by a regulated actor but execution and price discovery left to a permissionless market.

Grayscale, research notes, and revenue metrics

In late June 2025, a Grayscale Research note listed Morpho among its “Top 20” for Q3 2025, highlighting TVL > $4B and ~$100M in annualized revenues at that time, with rapid growth through the year. Beyond the “ranking,” two points matter: Morpho’s ability to monetize lending depth (fees remain lean but usage scales) and its position as the #2 lending app by TVL in certain aggregates. Since then, indicators kept climbing: over $10B in cumulative deposits by summer 2025 (TVL ≈ $6.7B, outstanding loans ≈ $3.5B). This trajectory stems from aggregating mass-market distribution (wallets, exchanges) on one side and opening to institutional treasuries on the other (foundations, banks, asset managers). For data-minded readers, these reports cross checked with DeFiLlama and Morpho’s own dashboards offer a framework to assess growth sustainability by chain mix, share of fixed-rate flows, Markets V2 order-book depth, and more.

Wallets, Earn, and distribution: Trust Wallet, Ledger, Safe, Binance Wallet

Adoption ultimately flows through distribution. In 2025, Trust Wallet and Ledger Live made Morpho their default engine for Earn, exposing millions of users to simple self-custody saving (“deposit and earn”) backed by curated vaults and on-chain markets. On Ledger’s side, the partner page cites $100M+ in in-app deposits and 2,000+ unique depositors; on Trust Wallet, the multi-chain integration powers a mass-market Stablecoin Earn. Morpho’s official materials also cite Binance Wallet and Safe among distributors a meaningful signal for B2B2C integrators. For product teams, it proves you can plug an existing UX into an on-chain credit engine without rebuilding a protocol; for regulated actors, that compliance can live in the interface and offer eligibility rules without fragmenting liquidity. For end users, it’s a clear choice: liquid variable yield via a vault, or fixed-rate via matched offers all in the wallet or exchange they already use. @Morpho Labs 🦋 #Morpho $MORPHO