TBW - EXCLUSIVE: Revolut chooses Morpho for its DeFi yield offer
Revolut is clearly banking on cryptos. One of the first fintechs to enable the buying and selling of digital assets (back in 2017), it has expanded its offering over the years, culminating recently in the launch of its own exchange platform, Revolut X.
And the company founded by Nik Storonsky, which has made crypto-assets a strategic pillar, has no plans to stop there. According to our information, Revolut, which has just passed the 50 million user mark, has chosen Morpho to build its stablecoin returns offering. This will be available "in the coming weeks", according to several sources.
When contacted, neither Revolut nor Morpho wished to comment.
"The reputation and quality of the Morpho team"
On this partnership, French protocol Morpho was in the running against Aave, the largest decentralised finance protocol (DeFi); Aave attracted just over $25 billion in assets (TVL) compared with "just" $4.5 billion for Morpho.
"It was the reputation and quality of the Morpho team that made the difference," stressed a person close to Revolut.
Morpho is known for allowing companies to create vaults on Ethereum where to deposit digital assets to generate returns. There are a multitude of these, with varying levels of risk.
Morpho does not pilot them directly: the protocol simply provides the infrastructure. It is DeFi curators - the equivalent of asset managers - who design and operate the investment strategies (we have in fact devoted an investigation to this new profession that is in the process of being structured).
In the case of Revolut, it is unlikely that vaults will be managed in-house. Like other fintechs that rely on Morpho, the company would have to partner with external curators responsible for steering these strategies. Revolut would then act as an intermediary between the end user and a carefully chosen selection of Morpho vaults.
This choice of Revolut comes just a few weeks after Bleap and Deblock, two young crypto fintechs, have integrated the DeFi Angle and Morpho protocols into their applications, in order to offer their users a crypto alternative to traditional savings books.
Fintechs accelerate
More generally, we are seeing a real acceleration of fintechs in the crypto universe. Last week, Robinhood, which already allows its users to invest in crypto-currencies, announced in Cannes the launch of tokenised shares in US companies, aimed at its European customers.
In an exclusive interview with The Big Whale, Johann Kerbrat, head of Robinhood's crypto business, said the firm was betting heavily on tokenisation, adding that all its investment services "will gradually switch to blockchain".
