Motivation
MORPHO is the Morpho Protocol's governance token. The Morpho DAO — made up of MORPHO holders and delegators — governs the Morpho Protocol. The governance system uses a weighted voting system in which the number of MORPHO tokens held determines voting power.
MORPHO holders can vote on changes or improvements to the protocol, including:
- Future initiatives to grow the Morpho protocol;
- Deployment and ownership of Morpho smart contracts;
- Turning on/off the fee switch built into the Morpho smart contracts;
- Govern the DAO Treasury.
General Information
Ticker: MORPHO
Contract Address: 0x9994E35Db50125E0DF82e4c2dde62496CE330999
Deployed: 24 June 2022
Maximum Supply: 1,000,000,000 MORPHO
Token Distribution & Vesting
The overall distribution of MORPHO tokens, including vested and unvested allocations, as of September 23, 2024.
Morpho DAO
34.5% of MORPHO tokens are owned and controlled by the Morpho DAO. Holders of the MORPHO token can vote on how these tokens are used.
Users
5.4% of MORPHO tokens have been distributed from the Morpho DAO to users of the Morpho Protocol. MORPHO tokens will continue to be distributed under the scalable rewards model until the Morpho DAO votes to amend it.
Morpho Association
6.7% of MORPHO tokens are allocated to the Morpho Association for ecosystem development. This allocation can be used to fund partnerships, contributors, and any other initiatives that help grow the Morpho Protocol and advance Morpho’s network.
Reserve for Contributors
5.8% of MORPHO tokens are reserved for contributors to the Morpho Protocol for their role in the development and growth of the network. This reserve includes unallocated tokens set aside by the Morpho DAO for future contributors to the Morpho Protocol —such as employees of Morpho Labs, service providers, contractors, and research institutes.
Strategic Partners
27.5% of MORPHO tokens have been allocated to Strategic Partners tokens in exchange for providing support — monetary or otherwise — to the Morpho Protocol. These MORPHO tokens are distributed according to three vesting schedules based on the time these Strategic Partners joined the Morpho ecosystem.
Cohort 1: 4.0% allocated over a 3 year vest, with a 6 month lockup from when the MORPHO token contract was deployed on 24 June 2022.
Cohort 2: 16.8% originally allocated over a 3 year vest, with a 6 month lockup from 24 June 2022. However, these strategic partners have agreed to relock to a 6 month linear vesting, following a 6 month lockup from the earliest of any future transferability date or 3 October 2024. This means 100% is vested by 3 October 2025 at the latest.
Cohort 3: 6.7% allocated over 2 year linear vest, following a 1 year lockup from the earliest of any future transferability date or 17 May 2025. This means 100% is vested by 17 May 2028 at the latest.
Founders
15.2% of MORPHO tokens have been allocated to Morpho’s founders. The tokens were originally allocated over 3 year vest, with a 1-year lockup from when the token was deployed on 24 June 2022. However, all co-founders have agreed to relock to additional 2 year linear vest, following a 1 year lockup from the earliest of any future transferability date or May 17th 2025. This means 100% is vested by 17 May 2028 at the latest.
Early Contributors
4.9% of MORPHO tokens have been allocated to early contributors, including Morpho Labs’ contributors, independent researchers, and advisors, in exchange for contributions to the Morpho Protocol. These tokens have been subject to either:
- A 3-year vesting schedule with a 6-month lockup, or
- A 4-year vesting schedule with a 4-month lockup.
Non-Transferability & Future Distribution
If token-based governance allows anyone to own a share of the Morpho network, many token launches are very unfair because the launch date & price are often a centralized decision. Moreover, there is usually a large information asymmetry between the initial team/investors and the potential buyers.
The MORPHO token was launched as non-transferable to tackle those issues, allowing the DAO to turn on transferability anytime. This way, the token launch decision itself will be decentralized.
In our vision, a good equilibrium for the control of a DAO is a clear distribution between:
- Users: To own a share of the network and to provide a positive feedback loop on the product.
- Contributors: To keep improving and building based on the user's feedback and on their technical vision.
- Investors: To provide capital and guidance to fuel those contributions.
The initial distributions for 2. and 3. are described in the previous section. As for 1., it is described in the incentives section.
That said, while three instances of Morpho Optimizers were deployed already, most of the work done by the initial team on Morpho is still not public. This implies that:
- A quick path to token launch may lead to large information asymmetry.
- Distribution to users should not happen only during Morpho Optimizer, as tokens should also be distributed for future protocols of Morpho.
While this approach offers a great path to fair and relevant decentralization, a clear trade-off is that it takes a lot of time. We believe it can take years to be achieved. While this is uncommon in a space where tokens become liquid in just weeks, we feel this is crucial to be able to create a very long-term oriented and sustainable ecosystem.
Roles and Responsibilities
The Morpho Token is built with a role-based access control system, ensuring that different functions and responsibilities within the protocol are clearly defined and secure. This role system helps manage the transferability and minting of tokens as well as the governance actions within the protocol.
Defined Roles
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Owner
- Can set user roles.
- Can set role capabilities.
- Can transfer ownership.
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Role 0: Transfer Role
- Can transfer tokens.
- Can transfer tokens on behalf of others (transferFrom).
The current owner of the MORPHO token is morpho.eth (5/9 multisig), more info in this section.