Morpho has opened lending markets for five Coinbase tokenized stocks on Base, with users pledging $104,401 in stock tokens and borrowing $54,652 in USDC against them so far.
Summary
- Morpho has opened lending markets for five Coinbase tokenized stocks on Base, with $104,401 pledged as collateral and $54,652 borrowed in USDC.
- Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta and SpaceX tokens are supported, while five other Coinbase stock tokens currently have no Morpho markets.
- Borrowing jumped from $503 to $42,105 in roughly two hours on Sept. 16 and has since climbed to $54,652.
- All current borrowing is concentrated in variable rate markets, while Morpho’s 95 Midnight fixed rate markets have no outstanding loans.
According to Morpho, holders can now use the Coinbase issued assets as collateral and borrow USDC through variable rate markets or its Midnight fixed rate lending layer, giving eligible investors a way to access dollars without selling their tokenized stock positions.
The markets cover Apple (AAPLc), Alphabet (GOOGLc), Nvidia (NVDAc), Meta Platforms (METAc) and SpaceX (SPCXc). Coinbase currently has 10 stock tokens listed on Base, but Amazon, Microsoft, Strategy, SanDisk and Tesla do not yet have corresponding Morpho markets.
Morpho lending starts with five Coinbase stocks
Borrowing remained limited after the five markets were deployed on Sept. 7, with outstanding loans staying below $600 until Sept. 16. Morpho historical data showed borrowing climbing from $503 to $42,105 in roughly two hours that day before reaching $54,652 by Friday morning.
The lending activity follows Coinbase’s expansion of its tokenized equity products on Base. Coinbase initially released Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet tokens in August before adding six more stocks in September, taking the lineup to 10 assets. The second batch included Amazon, Microsoft, Strategy, SanDisk, SpaceX and Tesla.
Coinbase’s first four products are backed one for one by underlying shares held through a segregated custody arrangement, crypto.news previously reported. The tokens represent beneficial interests in the underlying securities and are designed to remain in self custodial wallets while interacting with supported applications on Base.
Coinbase Onchain SPV Ltd., an entity incorporated in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, issues the securities. The products are offered to eligible investors outside the United States and are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act.
Steakhouse Financial curates all five Morpho markets and determines parameters including collateral requirements. Its two Steakhouse High Yield USDC vaults account for 98.9% of the dollars supplied to the largest market.
For Apple, the two vaults supply $24,540 of the $24,805 deposited into the lending pool. Chipworks USDC accounts for another $262, while two wallets provide less than $3 combined.
Stock collateral carries different liquidation limits
Morpho’s Apple, Nvidia, Meta and SpaceX markets have a liquidation loan to value ratio of 62.5%, while Alphabet carries a higher 77% threshold.
Market contracts themselves do not enforce the geographic restrictions. Morpho said compliance controls are set through the stock tokens and their issuers, with the markets unavailable to U.S. persons and people in other restricted jurisdictions.
Coinbase’s tokenized stock structure already limits access to eligible non U.S. investors. Its first products launched under Regulation S, with each token representing an interest in an underlying security instead of a synthetic contract that simply tracks its price.
Chainlink introduced price feeds for the initial Coinbase stock tokens shortly after their Base launch, allowing lending protocols to calculate collateral values, borrowing limits and liquidations. Chainlink price feeds initially supported Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet, with each feed calculating the total return value of the corresponding token.
Morpho now uses its Chainlink V2 oracle adapter to price collateral in the five markets. The Apple feed showed $335.49 at 1:42 p.m. UTC on Friday, compared with a $337.52 price for the token on DefiLlama.
At a 62.5% liquidation loan to value ratio, the Apple market applies a 12.67% liquidation penalty. No liquidation has been recorded in the market since its deployment, while its largest borrower holds 113.46 AAPLc against a 20,360 USDC loan with a health factor of 1.17.
Variable rate markets hold all current borrowing
Borrowing has so far remained entirely on Morpho’s variable rate markets despite fixed rate alternatives being available through Midnight.
Apple, Alphabet and Nvidia are running at 90% utilization, matching the target set by their interest rate model. Borrowers in the markets pay 5.62%, while lenders receive 5.06%.
Meta has reached 97% utilization, pushing it past the model’s target and onto the steeper section of its rate curve. Borrowing costs have consequently reached 17.52%, with lenders earning 16.98%.
Morpho launched Midnight on Base in July as a fixed rate and fixed term lending system designed to let borrowers and lenders establish loan conditions without depending solely on variable rate models. The protocol was later expanded to Ethereum.
For each of the five Coinbase stock tokens, Midnight currently has 19 USDC markets, creating 95 fixed rate markets in total. Maturities run daily through Sept. 30 before moving to Oct. 30, Nov. 27, Dec. 25 and March 26, 2027, alongside an open ended market for each token.
None of the 95 markets has outstanding units, leaving the $54,652 in current stock backed borrowing concentrated in Morpho’s variable rate pools.
Tokenized stock collateral remains a small market
Around $11.4 million of the five supported stock tokens is outstanding on Base based on contract supply and Morpho’s oracle prices. The $104,401 deposited as Morpho collateral represents less than 1% of that amount.
Trading activity across Base’s tokenized stock sector has expanded more quickly. Token Terminal recorded $730.9 million in decentralized exchange volume over the 30 days ending Sept. 12, while daily volume reached a record $100 million.Base stock trading volume was led by Aerodrome, which processed $557.1 million during the measured period, with Uniswap v4 handling another $139.3 million.
Morpho holds $4.03 billion in deposits on Base and $10.42 billion across supported chains, according to DefiLlama. Base lists Aave and Euler alongside Morpho as protocols where eligible holders can borrow against Coinbase’s stock tokens.
MORPHO traded at $2.40 on Friday, up 11% over the previous 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $1.68 billion, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin gained 4.9% over the same period, while ether rose 4.3%.
