Coinbase Adds Two USDC Lending Vaults on Morpho, With a Choice of Risk Tier

Coinbase this afternoon launched two onchain $USDC lending vaults built on Morpho and curated by Steakhouse Financial, giving users their first choice of risk profile when lending from the exchange: a conservative Prime tier backed by blue-chip crypto collateral, and a Higher Yield tier drawing on assets issued by Ethena.

The launch was announced on Coinbase's official X account this afternoon, with a blog post providing product details. The vaults run on Morpho, the permissionless lending protocol that raised $175 million in June at a reported $2 billion valuation and now holds roughly $6.5 billion in total value locked, per DefiLlama.

The Two Tiers

The Prime vault lends $USDC against blue-chip collateral, principally BTC and ETH. Existing Steakhouse-curated $USDC vaults on Morpho carry yields in the 3.5 to 4% range, per DefiLlama pool data.

The High Yield vault accepts collateral from a broader basket, including assets issued by Ethena. The Steakhouse-curated vault using USDtb, Ethena's T-bill-backed stablecoin, yields approximately 8.79% annually on Morpho, per DefiLlama. USDtb is one of two Ethena-issued stablecoins; the other, USDe, has $4.48 billion in circulation across 28 chains. The Coinbase blog describes the High Yield tier as backed by “a broader mix of assets, including those powered by @ethena” without naming the specific instruments.

Three Roles, One Stack

Morpho supplies the non-custodial lending infrastructure. Steakhouse Financial, a DeFi risk curator managing $2.03 billion in Morpho vault TVL, selects the collateral markets and sets the risk parameters for each vault. Ethena provides the yield-bearing assets in the High Yield tier.

Steakhouse built a roughly $1 billion lead over its nearest Morpho vault competitor as of May, per prior Defiant coverage. The curator's work sits one layer below what users see on Coinbase: it sets the loan-to-value ratios and collateral eligibility for the underlying Morpho markets, but the Coinbase interface abstracts those parameters.

The Coinbase-Ethena relationship predates the vault launch: Coinbase Ventures took an open-market ENA stake in June as part of a broader distribution agreement.