Coinbase has launched two onchain USDC lending vaults built on Morpho and curated by Steakhouse Financial: a conservative Prime tier backed by BTC and ETH collateral, and a Higher Yield tier drawing on Ethena-powered assets.
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.
