NMPIP: Lend 5,160 ETH via the Morpho Steakhouse ETH Vault on Ethereum

Summary

This proposal recommends allocating 5,160 ETH from the Nexus Mutual Enzyme Vault to the Morpho Steakhouse ETH Vault on Ethereum mainnet. The allocation aims to generate sustainable yield on ETH while diversifying beyond staking.

Rationale

Nexus Mutual recently changed its ETH allocation strategy, creating an opportunity to redeploy ETH into yield strategies aligned with the Capital Pool’s objectives:

• Generate sustainable yield on ETH assets
• Diversify yield strategies beyond staking
• Ensure allocations are made to protocols with robust security and risk management

Lending allocation to Morpho aligns with the stated objectives and offers key advantages: it reduces direct exposure to liquid staking depeg risks, provides greater access to liquidity through isolated markets managed by top-tier risk curators, and delivers returns competitive with staking yields.

Morpho for Treasuries and Foundations

Morpho is the most trusted onchain lending protocol with +$13B in deposits. Morpho empowers custodians and distributors to embed native onchain lending and borrowing capabilities into their products.

In early 2025, Coinbase launched crypto-backed loans powered by Morpho, marking the largest-scale DeFi integration to date with $700m in loans originated.

Security-first

Morpho has been built with a security-first philosophy. The protocol features only 600 lines of immutable code, formally verified and extensively reviewed — making it the most audited protocol in DeFi, with 26+ external audits and a $5M live bug bounty. This minimal and immutable architecture ensures transparency, predictability, and removes risks related to upgrades. Importantly, Morpho vaults are non-custodial — assets remain fully under lenders’ control.

Tailored Risk Profile

Morpho Vaults are curated by tier-one risk managers (Vault curators), providing independent oversight of allocations. The vault curators allocate liquidity across isolated lending markets, which means that risks remain confined to each vault rather than spreading across the protocol. This structure allows for customizable exposures — some vaults focus exclusively on blue-chip collateral, while others diversify into broader baskets of more exotic assets.

Prime Vaults: Institutional-Grade Lending

Aragon, Origin, Flowdesk, Swissborg, Stake DAO, Moonwell and many other respected DAOs and Foundations are trusting Morpho with their treasuries.

Prime Vaults employ conservative allocation strategies, focusing on the highly liquid markets with established collateral assets (wstETH, weETH, wBTC, cbBTC).

Historical APY of Steakhouse ETH vault

30-day avg	90-day avg	Market Exposure
Steakhouse ETH	1,78%	2,29%	wstETH/WETH (LTV 96,5%), wstETH/WETH (LTV 94,5%)

Historical APY figures presented in this proposal are net of all fees. The APY data can be found on the vault’s page on the Morpho App.

Key Yield Drivers

• Base Borrowing Demand: Rates adjust based on supply/demand dynamics
• Leverage cycles: During highly volatile market conditions, leverage pushes lending rates above 5% (e.g., July 17 and 23)
• Carry Trades: Borrowers take loans to leverage ETH on higher yield strategies

Rewards

Based on the 30-day avg for proposed Morpho Vault, Nexus Mutual’s ETH would earn the following yield net of vault performance fees:

• Steakhouse ETH Vault
  • 91.848 ETH per year
  • 0.2516 ETH per day

Fees & Ongoing Expenses

• Morpho protocol fees: None
• Vault curator fees: Performance-based, deducted from vault APY
  • Steakhouse ETH Vault Performance Fee: 5.00% (0.09% from the total APY)

Key Risk Considerations

Following the outlined provided in the Investment Philosophy Review - 2023 on the forum, here is a review of the proposed allocation to either of the Morpho Vaults outlined above.

• Asset/Liability Match. At present, Nexus Mutual’s Capital Pool holds 50,241 ETH in assets, with 67% of those assets held in stETH, rETH, and eETH. In addition, 27.09% is held in ETH. The proposed allocation to Morpho would represent 10.15% of the Mutual’s total assets. Depositing into one of the proposed Morpho Vaults would not impact the Mutual’s ability to pay claims, as liquidity can be withdrawn from a Morpho Vault. Because Morpho Vaults allocate to isolated markets, high utilization in one market would not impact others. Even during periods of stress, the majority of the Mutual’s liquidity in a Morpho Vault would be available to withdraw.
• Time Horizon. The ETH allocation will remain in the Morpho Vault long term to generate yield for Nexus Mutual, but it can be withdrawn at any time. Only during short periods of very high utilization across all markets in a vault might withdrawals be temporarily constrained. Importantly, Morpho’s design actively mitigates this risk. By construction, around 10% of underlying vault liquidity is always available for withdrawal, and this buffer grows proportionally as the markets expand. Liquidity is also highly dynamic: when utilization spikes, borrowers quickly repay to manage their costs, while attractive rates simultaneously draw in new lender deposits — both of which restore available liquidity on a short time frame.
• Capitalization. At present, the Minimum Capital Requirement (MCR) Percentage (Capital Pool / MCR) is 642.5%. The MCR itself is 8,058 ETH. Nexus Mutual is well capitalized and allocating ETH to Morpho Vaults is well within the Mutual’s investment framework.

Risk Buckets

• Illiquidity Risk
  • Low risk
  • Nexus Mutual will be able to withdraw the ETH deposit to the Morpho Vault at any time. The only factor here is each individual market’s utilization rate vs. the total available liquidity in the Morpho Vault. The risk is low given each vault allocates to isolated markets and even under periods of stress, the majority of the Mutual’s capital can be withdrawn as needed.
• Basis Risk.
  • Low risk
  • Nexus Mutual’s Capital Pool primarily holds ETH, so an ETH-based investment carries no basis risk.
• Protocol Risk.
  • As stated previously, the Morpho protocol has undergone 26+ audits and has a live bug bounty program with a $5M bug bounty for critical vulnerability disclosures. Morpho code base is immutable, so there is no risk of codebase changes or upgrades. Morpho has $13B+ in deposits and has never suffered a loss of funds due to an exploit in the past. We take security seriously.
• Collateral Exposure Risk.
  • ETH Prime Vaults allocate liquidity to markets that use Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) and to smaller exposure Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs) such as wstETH or weETH as collateral. These assets generally trade close to parity with ETH, but a severe depeg event could impact borrower collateral values. Importantly, Morpho’s design substantially mitigates this risk:
• Isolated markets mean that exposure to a depeg is confined to the specific vault and market, rather than spreading system-wide.
• Robust liquidation mechanisms ensure that when a borrower’s position falls below its liquidation threshold, collateral is liquidated promptly.
• Reliable oracles minimizes the risk of stale or manipulated pricing, further reducing the chance of bad debt.
• Vault curators actively manage allocations — they constantly monitor markets, adjust exposures when needed, and maintain conservative risk parameters. Curators also have emergency protocols to withdraw liquidity if required, with the key objective of protecting lenders’ capital.
• Leverage.
  • No leverage
  • The Mutual will not be using leverage.
• Counterparty Risk.
  • Low
  • The only counterparties the Mutual will be exposed to are borrowers and vault curators. If a borrower’s position drops below the Liquidation Loan-To-Value (LLTV) factor, they will be liquidated. Each of the proposed vault curators have well-established security measures, with timelocks in place for any new vault allocations. You can review each curator’s risk disclosures and security measures below.
    • Steakhouse ETH Vault
• Using Nexus Mutual’s investment framework, the proposed allocation to either one of these Morpho Vaults would represent a low-risk investment allocation.
• Steakhouse provides detailed explanations of their risk frameworks, available on Information Hub | Steakhouse Financial.

Specification

If this NMPIP is approved, 5,160 ETH from Nexus Mutual's Enzyme Vault will be allocated to the Morpho Steakhouse ETH Vault on Ethereum mainnet.

Conclusion

The suggested allocation advances the Capital Pool’s objectives by generating sustainable ETH yield, diversifying beyond staking, and ensuring robust security through Morpho’s immutable, extensively audited architecture and curated vault design. By allocating to Steakhouse ETH Vault, Nexus Mutual gains exposure to competitive returns while reducing reliance on liquid staking derivatives and containing risks within isolated markets.