Key Highlights
- Morpho crossed $1B in active loans on Base, marking rapid growth in on-chain lending and rising demand for decentralized credit markets.
- Base is now Morpho’s second-largest network, with about $1.18B in active loans, behind only Ethereum.
- Morpho manages about $3.6B in active loans overall, placing it among the larger DeFi lenders, though still behind Aave.
Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol, has reached a major milestone on Base, the Ethereum-linked Layer-2 network developed by Coinbase, with more than $1.18 billion in active outstanding loans – a roughly 1,000% increase from the same period last year.
On-chain data tracker Token Terminal shows this represents a roughly tenfold growth compared with the same period last year, reflecting a notable rise in borrowing activity and on-chain credit demand.
In DeFi, Total Value Locked (TVL) often counts idle deposits. However, “Active Loans” measure the capital actually being utilized by borrowers. This milestone tends to prove that Base has been adopted not only for trading but also for actual lending on the platform.
The surge is largely powered by Coinbase’s “DeFi Mullet” strategy—TradFi in the front, DeFi in the back. By providing a familiar interface for users to borrow up to $5M in USDC against their Bitcoin (wrapped as cbBTC), Coinbase has successfully funneled massive centralized demand into Morpho’s decentralized settlement rails.
What the numbers say
According to DeFiLlama, Morpho manages about $3.7 billion in borrowed assets across all markets. The protocol generates roughly $147.8 million in annualized fees, with $12.1 million collected in the past 30 days and $440,874 in the last 24 hours, totaling around $217 million.
Most fees go to liquidity providers. Annualized token incentives are $9.44 million, with $37.1 million distributed so far, resulting in negative annualized earnings of about $9.44 million. The MORPHO token currently trades near $1.30, which is 68.74% below its all‑time high of $4.17.
Why this milestone stands out
Breaking the $1 billion barrier in active loans on Base is an indication that DeFi is maturing beyond mere staking and liquidity deposit services offered through tokens. These loans aren’t primed and parked but are being actively borrowed, so in effect, more akin to traditional credit markets.
This milestone also marks the arrival of Base on the map of financial hubs. As lending markets in Layer-2 ecosystems develop, credit in the blockchain is also becoming more significant in the ecosystem.
Morpho has $3.7 billion in active loans, making it a major player in DeFi lending, though still smaller than Aave ($22.7B). Other notable protocols include Maple Finance ($2.2B), Fluid ($2.1B), Spark ($1.5B), and Compound ($900M).
Base emerges as a lending hub
In September 2025, Coinbase launched a USDC lending product in partnership with Morpho, allowing users to earn yields without leaving the exchange. Deposited USDC is routed into vaults managed via Morpho’s smart contracts, providing borrowers access to funds while customers earn interest automatically, with instant withdrawals and no lockups.
Base has quickly become one of Morpho’s most important networks. Latest breakdowns show about $1.18 billion in active loans on Base, making it the protocol’s second-largest market after Ethereum.
The surge has been driven in large part by Coinbase’s integration of Morpho’s lending infrastructure into its user-facing loan products. Users can borrow USDC against wrapped bitcoin such as cbBTC and other crypto assets, with Base acting as the on-chain settlement layer.
Across all chains, Morpho’s total active loans stand near $3.6 billion, with Ethereum accounting for roughly $1.9 billion, followed by Base, Arbitrum One (~$208 million), and HyperEVM (~$148 million), alongside smaller deployments on OP Mainnet, Polygon, and other networks.
Much of Base’s growth has been driven by the integration of Morpho’s lending infrastructure into Coinbase-linked borrowing products, where users can borrow assets such as USDC against crypto collateral. A large share of this borrowing activity is executed on-chain through Morpho’s Base markets, bringing centralized user flows into decentralized settlement rails.
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