Morpho Launches Fixed-Rate, Fixed-Term Lending Protocol Midnight on Base

Morpho, a decentralized finance lending protocol, has launched Midnight, a fixed-rate, fixed-term lending protocol, on the Base network.

The Block reported on July 21 that Morpho formally launched Midnight on Base after unveiling the product in May. Midnight complements Morpho Blue, the company's existing variable-rate lending protocol.

Morpho said the launch is part of its plan to expand on-chain credit markets. Traditional credit markets operate on fixed rates and set maturities, while most DeFi lending protocols today are built around variable rates.

"Fixed-rate lending is core to how global credit markets function," Morpho co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Paul Frambot said. "Without it, on-chain markets are incomplete."

Midnight is designed to let lenders and borrowers negotiate loan terms directly instead of relying solely on a pricing formula set by the protocol. Users can structure loans by setting the interest rate, maturity and counterparty.

Morpho said Midnight will be available to both institutional and retail users. The protocol can support financing backed by tokenized real-world assets, structured credit products and repo-style transactions that use collateral to raise short-term funding.

Frambot also contrasted Midnight with earlier fixed-rate lending protocols. "Past attempts built fixed rates on top of variable rates, and that was incomplete," he said. "The right approach is to build fixed rates at the base layer and then put variable-rate products on top of that."

Midnight is launching first on Base. Morpho plans to expand the protocol to other blockchains later, but did not disclose a timeline or identify specific networks.

Morpho also said its lending network now holds more than $11 billion in deposits. Coinbase, Kraken, Bitwise Asset Management and SG Forge, the digital-asset subsidiary of Societe Generale, are using Morpho's infrastructure to build on-chain credit products.