Morpho (MORPHO) climbed 7.5% over 24 hours as the DeFi lender closed a $175 million round co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto and Ribbit.
Key Points:
- Morpho raised $175 million in one of DeFi's largest rounds, valuing the protocol near $2 billion.
- Paradigm, a16z crypto and Ribbit led the financing, joined by Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures and VanEck.
- MORPHO rose about 7.5% to $1.93, even as the wider crypto market slipped close to 2%.
DeFi Lender Morpho Closes $175M Round
Morpho Association unveiled the financing this week, ranking it among the largest fundraises in decentralized finance to date and valuing the onchain credit protocol at roughly $2 billion. More than a dozen strategic backers joined the three lead investors, including Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures, VanEck, Ledger Cathay, Variant and HashKey Capital. Wintermute Ventures, SBI Group and Bpifrance also took part.
The network holds more than $11 billion in deposits. It already underpins lending across exchanges Coinbase, Kraken and Binance, and serves institutional users such as Bitwise, Galaxy and Anchorage Digital across custody, lending and yield products.
The deal marks Morpho's fourth institutional raise since 2021. Earlier backers included Coinbase Ventures and Pantera Capital. The association said it will spend the new capital deepening technical and commercial integrations with strategic partners and broadening the open credit network it has built.
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Frambot, Paradigm Bet On Onchain Credit
Cofounder Paul Frambot said dated infrastructure, fragmented systems and extractive intermediaries have long held finance back, and he cast Morpho as the open alternative. He framed the protocol as a credit network that connects holders of idle capital with borrowers across DeFi, traditional finance and global markets.
Frankie, a general partner at Paradigm, predicts nearly every bank, asset manager and pension fund will eventually want exposure to the onchain credit markets Morpho aims to unify. Guy Wuollet of a16z crypto said the protocol's simple, secure design keeps pushing borrowing and lending forward for some of the world's leading financial institutions. Ribbit's Gabe Mennesson called lending finance's largest profit pool.
MORPHO Defies The Market Downturn
MORPHO traded near $1.93 at the time of writing, a 7.5% daily gain that broke sharply from a wider market drifting lower. The advance stood out as the total crypto market capitalization slipped close to 2% across the same 24-hour window.
The token still trails over longer windows, down 5.7% on the week and roughly 12% over the trailing month. It now sits about 54% below the $4.17 record it reached in January 2025, months before this year's broad pullback set in. That peak predates the raise that has reset expectations around the protocol.
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