MIP 131 - Allocation of a Grant for the Morpho Association’s Strategic Support Program (2026-2030)

Governance
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MIP 131 - Allocation of a Grant for the Morpho Association’s Strategic Support Program (2026-2030)

Summary

The Morpho Association (the “Association”) is requesting from the MORPHO token-holding community (the “DAO”) an allocation of a financial grant of 150M MORPHO, to support the Association’s mission to develop and promote the Morpho network over a multi year program (2026-2030). Should the Association cease its activities before the end of this period, it undertakes to repay to the DAO any unspent MORPHO.

Motivation

The Association, acting as the primary independent contributor to the Morpho ecosystem, maintains a multi-year support program to fund fundamental work to benefit the Morpho network, its users, and public goods for the entire DeFi ecosystem at large. The Morpho Association is free to use the grant and develop its roadmap independently to serve the best interests of the Morpho network.

The program is structured around, but not limited to, the following actions aimed at elevating Morpho to a leading open global financial infrastructure:

  1. Technological Innovation and Protocol Resilience: Fundamental research and development (protocols, interfaces, security, etc.) in the interest of the Morpho network.
  2. Ecosystem Growth and Awareness: Initiatives to raise awareness of decentralized finance and the Morpho protocol, and coordination of actions benefitting the DeFi ecosystem.
  3. Institutional Expansion and Strategic Partnerships: Protocol integration and strategic partnerships to foster network growth.

Allocation conditions

The transfer will be made from the address 0xcba28b38103307ec8da98377fff9816c164f9afa following validation by the multisig executing the DAO’s decision to the address 0x6ABfd6139c7C3CC270ee2Ce132E309F59cAaF6a2 held by the Association. As a result of the above, the grant will be fully and definitively acquired at the end of the period covered by this funding.

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Thanks to the Association for putting this proposal forward! I’m trying to understand how 150M MORPHO will actually be deployed. A few questions and suggestions.

On the use of the 150M

  1. Is this primarily continuity funding for the Association’s core team and product work (R&D, frontends like app/curator/liquidation apps, API/SDK, integrations, BD), as ratified retrospectively in MIP 100 and MIP 129? Or does it also cover chain expansion budgets, marketing, conferences, hackathons, etc?

  2. How does it interact with the other funding streams already in place? Chain liquidity incentives have flowed through external grants (MIP 112, MIP 127), curator rewards through vault fees or one-offs like MIP 60 Olympics, Merkl campaigns are managed separately. Is the intent to keep those strictly separate from the 150M, or could a portion be deployed there?

  3. Could the Association share an indicative split across the three pillars (R&D / ecosystem / partnerships), even rough? A forward-looking equivalent of the MIP 100 / MIP 129 category visualizations would help calibrate.

On external builder and integrator grants

The original grants framework (RFC: Grants Framework, then MIP 81, then MIP 93) was set up as a parallel channel for external builders. The pilot drew 100+ applications.

  1. What is the current status of the MIP 93 grantees? A public summary of who hit Milestone 1 (completion), Milestone 2 (impact metrics), who received the 60% performance tranche, and the aggregate outcome would be useful, unless it has been published somewhere I missed.

  2. Is a “Call for Grants v2” planned? Then how/when (and why, if not)

  3. Would it make sense to earmark a portion of the 150M (something in the 2 to 5% range) for a structured external grants stream, with a public application process and reporting against the MIP 93 framework?

  4. Would the eligibility scope be open to any team or individual (existing integrators, new builders, solo devs), or are there pre-qualification criteria? Worth clarifying which categories qualify: new adapters and integration libraries, third-party frontends, curator tooling, analytics and indexing, educational content with measurable reach, marketing initiatives, etc.

A few additional suggestions

  • More communication on social media when DAO votes are live. Several recent MIPs, including this one, reached Snapshot with limited visibility on the official channels (Twitter / X in particular). For decisions of this size, an active comms push would help engagement.

  • More detailed public summaries of which grants have been distributed and to whom, beyond the aggregate breakdowns already published in MIP 100 / MIP 129. Per-recipient granularity (when possible) would build trust and give a clearer picture of where funds actually go.

  • A question on hackathon sponsoring. Morpho was visible at a number of hackathons in 2024 and early 2025 to attract builder talent, but this seems to have tapered. Was the ROI judged too low, was it a deliberate shift toward other formats (integrator partnerships, in-house BD), or something else?

  • A request-for-contribution mechanism alongside the open builder grants channel could be useful. The Association or DAO could publish specific identified needs (e.g. adapters for a given chain, curator tooling, indexing infra, …) with attached budgets, and teams apply. More directed than open grants, and surfaces work the Association doesn’t have bandwidth for in-house. Questbook or similar platforms can host both formats.

Would welcome the Association’s clarifications on any of the above! Thanks again for the transparency!

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Bumping this thread. These are excellent and highly critical questions regarding the 150M MORPHO deployment and external grants framework under MIP 131. It would be highly appreciated if the Morpho Association or core team could provide some clarifications on these points before the snapshot/voting ends. Looking forward to your response!

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