Wintermute, one of crypto’s largest market makers, just became its own bank, borrower, and collateral issuer all at once. The firm launched Armitage, a vault curation business on Morpho, pulling in roughly $53 million in total value locked across two USDC vaults within days of going live on May 19.
The setup works like this: Wintermute borrows USDC on the Wildcat protocol at a fixed 9.25% APR, with no collateral backing that loan. It then wraps that borrowed position into a token called v-wmtUSDC, deposits it into one of the Armitage vaults, and uses it as collateral to borrow even more USDC. In English: the firm turned its own unsecured IOU into an asset that lets it borrow again.
Two vaults, two risk profiles
Armitage launched with a pair of USDC-denominated vaults, each targeting different appetites for risk. The USDC Prime vault is the conservative option, holding $20.61M in TVL and generating a net APY of 3.65%. It focuses on blue-chip collateral.
The USDC Select vault attracted $32.4M in TVL, offering a 4.2% net APY at launch with a stated target range of 5-8% net APY over time. The higher yield comes from its willingness to accept a more diverse collateral mix that includes v-wmtUSDC, the wrapped version of Wintermute’s unsecured borrowing activity.
