Morpho ships Midnight, a fixed-rate lending protocol, on Base

Morpho has publicly launched Midnight, a fixed-rate, fixed-term lending protocol built on Base, The Block reported on July 21. The protocol was first unveiled in May and now runs alongside Morpho Blue, the project's existing variable-rate lending market.

The pitch is that most onchain lending uses floating rates, while traditional credit runs on fixed rates and defined loan terms. CEO and co-founder Paul Frambot told The Block that Midnight lets lenders and borrowers negotiate their own rates, maturities, and counterparties rather than accept protocol-set pricing formulas, aiming at tokenized real-world-asset financing, structured credit, and repo-style deals. "Fixed-rate lending is fundamental to how global credit markets operate," Frambot said. "Without it, onchain markets remain incomplete."

Frambot drew a distinction with earlier fixed-rate protocols such as Pendle, Term Finance, and Notional, saying those built fixed rates "on top of variable rates, which was imperfect." Midnight, he said, builds fixed rates at the primitive level. In a blog post, Morpho said prior attempts saw thin liquidity "because of the capital commitment required up front"; its own design keeps a lender's funds earning on Morpho Blue until a fixed-rate offer is taken, and makes same-maturity positions fungible to allow early exit and late entry.

Key facts

• Midnight is live on Base as a fixed-rate, fixed-term lending protocol; unveiled May, publicly launched now (The Block, July 21).
• Complements the variable-rate Morpho Blue; uses an offer-book architecture (Frambot, via The Block).
• Morpho cites more than 30 independent curators managing "billions" across Morpho Blue (Morpho, via The Block).
• Morpho says its lending network holds more than $11 billion in deposits, with Coinbase, Kraken, Bitwise, and Société Générale's SG Forge among users (Morpho, via The Block).
• Asked whether Coinbase will add Midnight to its Morpho-based onchain loans product, a Coinbase spokesperson said the company "has nothing to share at this stage" (via The Block).

The real-world read

Every headline number here — the $11 billion in deposits, the 30-plus curators, the "billions" under management — comes from Morpho itself, not an independent tally, and should be read as the company's own accounting. So should the framing that rivals like Pendle and Notional did it "imperfectly": that's a competitive claim from a competitor, made at launch. Frambot said "many platforms, institutions, and partners are interested in using Midnight," but named none, and the one concrete integration question — Coinbase, which already runs onchain loans on Morpho Blue — drew a firm non-answer. Plans to expand beyond Base came with no timeline and no named chains. This is a launch announcement built largely on the project's own materials; the demand it claims remains, for now, unverified.

Note: The Block discloses that Foresight Ventures, which invests across crypto, is its majority investor.

Opinion, and whose

• Frambot (Morpho): fixed-rate lending is essential and onchain markets are "incomplete" without it; building it as a primitive beats layering it on variable rates.
• Morpho (blog): earlier fixed-rate attempts failed on upfront capital commitment and fragmented liquidity, which Midnight's offer-based design is meant to solve.

Sources

• The Block (Yogita Khatri), July 21, 2026 — sole reporting for this item; the launch, Frambot's quotes, and all figures, which the outlet attributes to Morpho and to Frambot. Includes a disclosure that Foresight Ventures is The Block's majority investor.

This is news, not financial advice.