Coinbase has introduced fixed-rate loans allowing users to borrow the USDC stablecoin against their bitcoin holdings, adding a structured borrowing option to its already sizable variable-rate lending business.
Interest rates and repayment dates are set at origination, according to an announcement on Tuesday. The product runs on Morpho Midnight, a noncustodial lending protocol launched in July for fixed-rate and fixed-term crypto loans, and settles on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.
The offering complements Coinbase’s existing floating-rate loans, which have more than $1.4 billion in active positions backed by nearly $3 billion in collateral. Those loans operate on the Morpho Blue protocol, where rates shift with supply and demand and can rise during periods of heightened borrowing activity.
Paul Frambot, co-founder and chief executive of Morpho, said the firm and Coinbase have focused on scaling their joint products after an initial successful launch period. “We’re now building on that foundation and starting to scale: new loan types and use cases, bringing onchain credit one step closer to the scale and diversity of global credit markets,” he said on X.
Bitcoin-backed credit is currently valued at roughly $16 billion, according to the Bitcoin Digital Credit Report compiled by Apyx and BitcoinTreasuries.net. Some estimates project the market could reach $130 billion by 2030 as preferred equity structures expand.
Demand for such products appears strong. Early this year, Protocol Theory surveyed 1,244 cryptocurrency holders across the United States and Australia between February and March 2026 and found that 88% of respondents said they would consider taking out a crypto-backed loan or credit product.
Fixed-rate loans secured by bitcoin are not novel—lenders such as Ledn and SATL Lending have offered them for years. What distinguishes Coinbase’s latest rollout is that it operates onchain through a decentralized finance application while also being accessible within a mainstream retail exchange platform.
