Borrow Against Your Bitcoin at a Fixed Rate: Coinbase Expands Morpho Loans

In brief

• Coinbase launched fixed-rate loans powered by Morpho, letting users borrow USDC against Bitcoin with the interest rate and repayment date locked in from the start—a departure from on-chain lending's dominant variable-rate model.
• It's the first enterprise-scale deployment of Morpho Midnight, with Coinbase controlling the app experience, Morpho providing the credit infrastructure and Base handling settlement.
• The option joins Coinbase's existing Morpho-powered variable-rate loans, now over $1.4 billion in active loans backed by ~$3 billion in collateral.

Coinbase is giving borrowers a new way to tap cash without selling their Bitcoin, rolling out fixed-rate loans powered by decentralized lending protocol Morpho.

The product, announced Tuesday, lets Coinbase users borrow the USDC stablecoin against their Bitcoin with the interest rate and repayment date locked in from the start.

That marks a departure from the variable-rate model that has dominated on-chain lending, where borrowing costs float with market conditions and can climb unpredictably. Now users can opt for certainty over both the cost and the duration of their loan.

The launch is the first enterprise-scale deployment of Morpho Midnight, a newer version of the protocol built to support fixed rates and defined maturities, with loans priced and executed natively on the cryptocurrency network. Coinbase controls the user experience through its app, while Morpho provides the underlying credit infrastructure and Coinbase's Base network handles settlement.