Every other corner of DeFi lets the borrowing rate float. Here, ten teams are trying to nail it down for a fixed term — the niche beneath variable-rate giants like Aave and Morpho Blue. Strip away the mechanism names and they are ten bets on one hard problem: how to make a fixed rate liquid when every maturity is its own market. Ten mechanisms, one still pre-mainnet, the whole DeFi-native field worth a few hundred million and led by borrower-credit shop Wildcat. The honest caveat: the institutional RWA tier next door is ~50× bigger, and that is where the real money already sits.
— and most of that is two names. Borrower-credit shop Wildcat (~$150M outstanding) and Liquity V2 (~$74M) are the bulk of the field. Fira looks like the leader on a ~$425M headline — until you net out the collateral it loops through itself and that number collapses to ~$5M of real on-chain value. The metric was doing the marketing. Notional once topped ~$843M and still wound down after the Nov 2025 Balancer hack; scale was never what kept anyone alive. And the institutional RWA tier next door is still ~50× bigger than all of this combined.
21 June 2026
DefiLlama · protocol docs
Fixed-rate, fixed-term borrowing
10 core + adjacents
The ten protocols ahead are really ten different bets on how to beat these three problems.
Floating rates are fine until someone has to budget — which is the whole reason fixed income exists in the first place. On-chain that corner is still small, but it bites exactly where variable rates hurt most: institutional treasuries, RWA financing, and rate hedging. The demand is obvious; the on-chain liquidity to serve it is the part still missing.
Same goal — a predictable cost on a 3-month loan — routed through each protocol’s native mechanism.
| Protocol | How you’d lock the 3-month rate |
|---|---|
| Term Finance | Bid in the relevant weekly sealed-bid auction; you pay the single market-clearing rate. |
| TermMax | Mint/take FT via an AMM Range Order at the 3-month market. |
| Fira | Open a position in the 3-month market; the Bond Token you mint locks the rate, and you can sell the Coupon Token for upfront yield. |
| Secured Finance | Place a limit order in the 3-month order book; you mint a tokenized zero-coupon bond (“ZC ETH…”) at the matched rate. |
| Inverse (FiRM) | Buy the required DBR at market price — that price is your locked rate. |
| Morpho Midnight | Submit an intent for a fixed-rate / fixed-term match once live |
| Exactly | Lock the rate straight from the 3-month maturity pool (priced off its utilization). |
| IPOR | Keep the borrow on Aave and enter a 3-month rate swap to hedge the float. |
| Wildcat | Spin up a custom market with a 3-month term and whitelist the lenders. |
The tell: notice how differently each one discovers the rate — an auction, a bond price, an order book, a token you hold, an intent, a pool’s utilization, a swap, or simply whatever the borrower decrees. That mechanism is the whole story, and it’s the spine of the matrix on the next page.
| Protocol | Core mechanism | Fixed term | Rate set by | Collateral / risk | Status & TVL | Chains |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morpho Midnight | Intent-based P2P matching in isolated, immutable markets | Yes (fixed-maturity) | Intent matching + curators | Isolated, immutable markets | Pre-mainnet — audited May–Jun 2026 | EVM (planned) |
| Term Finance | Recurring on-chain sealed-bid auctions | Yes (weekly, up to ~1yr) | Single clearing price | Per-auction, overcollateralized | Live · ~$13M | Ethereum + BNB, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base |
| TermMax | Tokenized bonds (FT/XT/GT) + AMM “Range Orders” | Yes (maturity dates) | AMM curve pricing | Isolated positions; 1-click leverage | Live · ~$33–49M | Ethereum + 7 more (Base, BNB, Arbitrum, Berachain…) |
| Fira | Tokenized fixed-maturity bonds (BT / CT / FiraWrapped); rate by supply & demand | Yes (maturity dates) | Market supply/demand (not utilization) | Overcollateralized; isolated per-market | Live (2026) · ~$5M net TVL (large gross loan book, nets to ~$5M) | Ethereum |
| Secured Finance | On-chain order book (CLOB) for tokenized zero-coupon bonds; Itayose opening auction | Yes (quarterly maturities) | Order-book matching | Overcollateralized; also USDFC stablecoin | Live · ~$0.6M | Filecoin, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon zkEVM, Avalanche |
| Inverse (FiRM) | DBR — tokenized borrowing rights for DOLA | Flexible (DBR = ~1yr units) | DBR market price | Overcollateralized DOLA | Live · ~$20M (not ~$60M) | Ethereum |
| Exactly | Fixed-rate pools + one shared variable pool | Yes (maturity dates) | Per-maturity utilization | Variable + fixed pool interaction | Live (post-2023 hack) · ~$3.8M | Optimism, Base |
| IPOR | Interest-rate swaps; now pivoting to Fusion vaults | Yes (swap durations) | AMM for interest rates | Derivative overlay on Aave / Compound | Live · IRS now legacy | Ethereum, Arbitrum |
| Wildcat | Borrower-led custom credit markets | Yes (borrower-set) | Set by borrower at creation | Permissioned lenders; undercollateralized | Live · ~$150M outstanding | Ethereum |
| Liquity V2 | Overcollateralized BOLD borrowing; borrower sets own rate | Open term (rate locked until changed) | The borrower (rate sets redemption order) | Overcollateralized (ETH / LSTs) → BOLD | Live (2024) · ~$74M | Ethereum (widely forked) |
| Takeaway | The field divides on one thing: how the rate is discovered — auction, bond price, order book, a token you hold, an intent, pool utilization, a swap, or simple borrower decree. Rank it by net TVL, the only honest cross-protocol ruler, and Wildcat (~$150M) leads with Liquity V2 (~$74M) behind it; everything else is under ~$75M. Fira shows a huge gross loan book that nets to ~$5M — the loan book is real, the on-chain float is not. Notional (~$843M) is gone after the Balancer hack, and the most-hyped name, Morpho Midnight, still isn’t live. (Sky’s Spark lends ~$4.7B — but at a rate governance can change, so it is not a fixed term.) | |||||
Midnight is the fixed-rate, fixed-term half of Morpho V2 (the other half is Vaults V2). Instead of a shared pool, lenders and borrowers post intents — the rate and term they’ll accept — and the protocol matches them in isolated, immutable, permissionlessly-created markets. Rate and risk are externalized to curators rather than baked into a utilization curve.
It is designed to complement, not replace, Morpho Blue’s variable-rate pools, with institutional-grade fixed-rate lending as the explicit target. Non-custodial and EVM-native.
The whitepaper and codebase went public in late May 2026; a Cantina audit competition ran 29 May – 12 Jun 2026. As of this brief it is audited but not yet on mainnet — don’t assume it’s usable.
Term runs recurring weekly on-chain sealed-bid auctions for terms up to ~1 year. Lenders submit the rate they’ll accept and borrowers the rate they’ll pay; the auction clears at a single market-clearing rate that all matched participants receive or pay — no spread, no slippage. Loans are crypto-collateralized.
The pitch is fairness and certainty: everyone in a given auction transacts at the same transparent price.
Term is no longer Ethereum-only. It is now multi-chain — Ethereum is still ~72% of TVL, but it also runs on BNB Chain, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Base.
Status
Live with recurring auctions · ~$13M TVL.
Strip the jargon and it is the oldest trick in fixed income: sell a dollar for ninety cents today, repay a dollar at maturity — a zero-coupon bond with a wallet address. The model’s pioneer, Notional, is now in the graveyard (page 12), which tells you most of what you need: this is the most crowded corner of the field and the one that has already buried its leader. Three live attempts remain — TermMax on an AMM, Fira on supply-and-demand markets, and Secured Finance on a real order book.
A fixed-rate marketplace with maturity dates, built on tokenized instruments — FT (Fixed-rate Token, a zero-coupon bond), XT, and GT (loan-position) — priced through a custom AMM using “Range Orders.” Isolated positions, one-click leverage/looping, passive yield vaults.
Fira makes fixed-rate, fixed-maturity credit a native on-chain primitive, with rates discovered by supply and demand rather than a utilization curve — producing real yield curves and defined maturities. Each position is split into composable tokens: a Bond Token (principal; trades at a discount, redeems 1:1 at maturity — a zero-coupon bond), a Coupon Token (the yield, sellable upfront), and FiraWrapped collateral. Markets are isolated, each with its own collateral, loan token and risk profile. Its pitch: “Lock rates. Sell yield. Exit anytime.”
The one true on-chain central-limit order book in the set. Lenders and borrowers post limit orders for tokenized zero-coupon bonds at fixed maturities; a periodic Itayose opening auction discovers the first price, then continuous matching takes over. A filled order mints a transferable ERC-20 bond (e.g. “ZC ETH SEP2026”). It also issues the USDFC stablecoin on Filecoin and is pushing RWA integration.
Fixed-rate borrowing of the DOLA stablecoin via DBR (DOLA Borrowing Rights): 1 DBR = the right to borrow 1 DOLA for one year, depleting over time as the interest cost. Buy the DBR you need upfront and the price you pay is your locked annual rate. Duration is flexible/indefinite; overcollateralized. A yield-bearing sDOLA version also exists.
Borrow and lend at fixed rates across specific maturities. Exactly runs fixed-rate pools (one per maturity) bridged by a single shared variable-rate pool; each maturity’s rate is set by its own utilization.
Inter Protocol Over-block Rate. Rather than a standalone money market, IPOR’s original product was an interest-rate swap: a borrower already on a variable-rate platform (Aave, Compound) swaps their floating rate for a fixed one — predictability without moving collateral.
A borrower-led, undercollateralized, permissioned credit protocol. The borrower defines their own market — fixed rate, reserve ratio, withdrawal cycle, lender whitelist — and Wildcat provides the rails rather than underwriting the risk. V2 launched Feb 2026; counterparties include Wintermute, Amber and Keyrock.
Immutable, overcollateralized borrowing of the BOLD stablecoin against ETH and liquid-staking tokens — where each borrower sets their own annual interest rate. The catch: your chosen rate sets your redemption priority (the lowest-rate loans are redeemed against first), so rate-setting doubles as a continuous, market-driven defense of the peg.
Every fixed borrowing rate is implicitly priced against a risk-free benchmark. On-chain, that benchmark now exists — a ~$15B tokenized US-Treasury market yielding a blended ~3.3%, and increasingly the collateral that backs on-chain credit.
Source: rwa.xyz, 21 Jun 2026 · ~82 products, blended ~3.3% 7-day APY. In 2026 Circle’s USYC overtook BlackRock’s BUIDL as the single largest.
Ondo — OUSG (~$551M) + USDY (~$2.16B). Now building Ondo Chain and Ondo Global Markets (430+ tokenized stocks/ETFs; Franklin Templeton and MetaMask onboard) — its biggest 2026 thrust.
Superstate — USTB (~$838M, now Invesco-managed) + USCC crypto-carry (~$267M, now Bitwise). Coinbase Asset Management partnership.
OpenEden — TBILL (~$214M, reserves rated S&P AA+) + USDO stablecoin (~$33M). Backed by Ripple and Anchorage.
Why it’s here: these are not borrowing venues — they are the fixed-income floor the rest of the stack is priced against, and the collateral that increasingly backs on-chain fixed-rate credit.
The scale leader in on-chain institutional credit: RWA-focused, fixed-term, fixed-rate private credit through permissioned pools run by credit underwriters, plus the permissionless Syrup (syrupUSDC) yield token. ~$2.1B TVL across Ethereum and Solana; ~$12B cumulative loans at ~99% repayment (note the 2022 Orthogonal ~$36M default).
The flagship RWA-tranching name. Centrifuge V3 tokenizes funds and private credit as composable deRWA tokens across ~9 EVM chains (plus Solana and Stellar). Headline funds: JAAA — the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO fund (>$1B, seeded with $1B from Sky’s Grove) — and SPXA, the first licensed tokenized S&P 500 index fund. ~$1.63B TVL.
Began as uncollateralized institutional borrower pools; now repositioning around tokenized RWA credit and its own Ozean RWA L2. ~$27M TVL, now mostly on Flare — small today, an early bet on the RWA-rollup thesis rather than a scaled lender.
For an institutional or RWA builder, this tier — not the DeFi-native primitives — is where the real balance sheets sit: permissioned credit, tokenized funds, and senior/junior tranching of real-world assets, with tokenized Treasuries increasingly posted as collateral.
These create fixed / prioritized yield via senior/junior tranching rather than direct fixed-rate borrowing: Strata, Knox. For RWA tranching at scale, see Centrifuge on the previous page.
Maple, Clearpool and the tokenized-Treasury issuers now sit in the institutional / RWA frontier (pages 10–11) — that is where the real balance sheets are.
The honest take: by net TVL the DeFi-native field is Wildcat (~$150M) and Liquity V2 (~$74M), and not much else — Fira’s headline nets to ~$5M, Notional is gone, Morpho Midnight still isn’t live. The mechanisms are inventive; the demand is not here yet. The real balance sheets already moved next door, into ~$15B of tokenized Treasuries and the Maple / Centrifuge credit tier that dwarfs this whole list. So the open question isn’t whether fixed-rate borrowing matters on-chain — in TradFi it is most of credit — but what finally brings the volume: a better mechanism, clearer regulation, or institutional distribution?
core fixed-rate borrowing protocols
native field size · Wildcat leads (~$150M)
tokenized Treasuries next door
still pre-mainnet · Morpho Midnight