Apollo Buys 90M Morpho Tokens
Private credit giant Apollo acquired 90 million Morpho tokens over a 4-year period as institutional firms increasingly seek stable yields in DeFi. The move reflects growing institutional inflows into decentralized finance protocols. Meanwhile, ether.fi partnered with FalconX and M11 to offer fixed weETH yields without inflation exposure, and YieldFlow boosted Base network TVL by 8%.
- The agreement specifies that Apollo, a global asset manager with over $930 billion in assets under management, will acquire up to 9% of the total MORPHO token supply over a 48-month period. - Galaxy Digital's UK division served as the exclusive financial advisor to the Morpho Association for the transaction with Apollo. - Morpho is the sixth-largest decentralized finance protocol, with a total value locked (TVL) of $5.8 billion. The protocol's core infrastructure, Morpho Blue, allows for the creation of isolated lending markets with customized risk parameters, a feature that attracts institutional players. - Other major financial entities are already involved with Morpho; digital asset manager Bitwise launched curated vaults on the platform in January, and the Ethereum Foundation has deposited millions in ETH and stablecoins into its vaults. - The deal is part of a broader strategy for Apollo in the digital asset space, which includes a 2022 partnership with Coinbase to explore stablecoin credit strategies and an investment in Plume to enhance real-world asset tokenization. - Pantera Capital, another major investor in Morpho, highlighted the protocol's unique system that allows end-users to select their own risk assessors, differing from other DeFi protocols that often rely on third-party risk managers. - Following the announcement, the price of the MORPHO token saw a significant increase, rising 17.8% from approximately $1.12 to $1.32 over the weekend. - The ether.fi partnership with FalconX, a digital asset prime brokerage, involves integrating the liquid restaking token eETH across FalconX's trading, credit, and custody services to provide institutional clients with greater capital efficiency and access to OTC liquidity.
