[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] DeFi protocol Morpho has launched Midnight, a fixed-rate and fixed-maturity lending protocol, on the Base mainnet.

On July 21 local time, Cointelegraph reported that Morpho added maturity-based lending to Morpho Blue, its existing variable-rate lending market.

Midnight is structured so lenders and borrowers can propose interest rates, maturities and other loan terms directly. Loans are made on fixed terms based on competing offers, rather than a utilization curve set by the protocol or algorithm-based pool pricing.

Midnight is currently operating on the Base mainnet. It initially supports cbBTC and USDC across multiple maturity buckets. Morpho said it limited the initial rollout under a gradual launch strategy that prioritises security.

The launch follows Morpho's completion of a $175 million funding round in June. Morpho infrastructure is already used in variable-rate lending products on major cryptocurrency platforms. Coinbase launched USDC loans on Base in April for users in the UK, backed by bitcoin, ether and cbETH as collateral, and the product operated with variable interest rates and no set repayment schedule.