Why is Morpho moving today?

Morpho is outperforming a flat market, up 7.2% over 24 hours to $2.50 while Bitcoin added just 0.7%. The clearest coin-specific driver is protocol usage: Morpho recorded record Bitcoin-backed borrowing on Base, where Coinbase routes its BTC-collateralized loans through the lending protocol. That tie-in puts Morpho at the center of the "DeFi mullet" trade — a mainstream front end with on-chain credit underneath — and gives traders a concrete growth metric to point at.

Momentum was sharp rather than steady: TokenPost logged a 4.41% hourly jump to $2.56 on Binance spot late Tuesday, with a three-exchange tally showing zero long or short liquidations that hour, suggesting spot buying rather than a forced short squeeze.

The wider backdrop is supportive but not the main story. Visa and Mesh's deal to enable crypto spending at 175 million merchant locations, Germany's Sparkassen opening Bitcoin trading via DekaBank, and BlackRock's filing for an iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF all reinforce the institutional-adoption theme that lifts DeFi infrastructure tokens.