Armitage, the vault curation division of crypto market maker Wintermute, is branching into USDT lending on the Morpho protocol. The move marks a deliberate pivot from the USDC-only strategy the team launched with just a few months ago, signaling a broader push toward multi-stablecoin DeFi yield products.
The new USDT Prime vault targets a 3-4% annual percentage yield and charges zero management or performance fees.
From one stablecoin to two
Armitage first appeared on the scene in May 2026 with a pair of USDC vaults on Morpho, using Wintermute’s liquidation engine as the safety net underneath.
As of late August 2026, Armitage reported roughly $51.8 million in total assets under management across its Morpho vaults. A co-curated Pendle Ecosystem USDC vault alone hit between $50 million and $53.55 million in total value locked within weeks of its launch.
The USDT Prime vault allocates deposits exclusively to what Armitage calls blue-chip Morpho markets, including cbBTC/USDT and WBTC/USDT pairs. The existing USDC Prime vault, meanwhile, targets a slightly higher yield of 4-5% APY under similarly conservative parameters. Both vaults sit on Morpho V2 smart contracts, meaning deposits remain non-custodial and permissionless.
Why the USDT expansion matters
USDC has historically attracted institutional and US-centric capital, partly because of Circle’s regulatory positioning. USDT, by contrast, dominates global trading volume and is the stablecoin of choice across much of Asia and emerging markets. By offering vaults denominated in both, Armitage is effectively doubling its addressable market.
Most vault curators and yield aggregators skim somewhere between 10-20% of generated yield as a performance fee. Armitage’s decision to forgo that revenue stream entirely suggests the real business model lives elsewhere, likely in the data and flow advantages Wintermute gains from having visibility into lending market dynamics.
Wintermute’s DeFi infrastructure play
Launching a vault curation arm on Morpho gives Wintermute a direct presence in DeFi’s lending layer, not just its trading layer. When borrowers on Morpho fall below their collateral thresholds, Wintermute’s in-house liquidation infrastructure handles that process for Armitage vaults.
Morpho’s V2 architecture allows curators like Armitage to construct vaults with specific risk parameters while keeping the underlying smart contract logic standardized, making it possible for Armitage to offer conservative blue-chip-only vaults without needing to build custom infrastructure from scratch.
The $51.8 million AUM figure, accumulated in roughly three months, puts Armitage in a respectable position among Morpho vault curators. The Pendle Ecosystem USDC vault crossing $50 million in TVL shortly after launch reinforces that signal.