Morpho

What

Morpho is a peer-to-peer layer built on top of other lending protocols like Compound or AAVE. It is a lending protocol optimizer - this means that it improves capital efficiency on lending pools by improving the matching of lenders and borrowers. Morpho can be adapated and deployed to any pool based lending protocol, and it acts as a proxy between the user and the underlying lending pool. In the worst case scenario users get the normal APY of the underlying pool, but when matched they received an improved rate thanks to the P2P matching.

You can think of Morpho as an engine that matches users interacting in a pool depending on their preferences to get the best rates for both of them.

Why

Peer-to-peer lending is more efficient than peer-to-pools lending (where lenders provide liquidity or assets, to a pool of assets, and borrowers borrow from it). In P2P lending, lenders and borrowers are matched directly and the interest is paid by the borrowers directly to the lender instead of being paid to a pool to be later distributed among all lenders in a pro-rata basis. Morpho combines the benefits of P2P lending (capital efficiency) with the relative high liquidity of peer-to-pool lending. This enhanced matching results in improved rates for lenders and borrowers.