Wintermute, one of the world’s largest algorithmic trading firms, is excited to introduce Armitage, their new vault curation business that provides institutional trading intelligence in decentralized finance (DeFi) lending markets. The product is making its debut with two USDC vaults on Morpho (a leading decentralized lending protocol), with plans to expand into many other blockchains across the ecosystem.
How does Wintermute’s Armitage work?
Armitage is the vault-curation platform of Wintermute. It selects lending markets, determines the risk parameters, and monitors and rebalances positions on behalf of depositors, all while keeping funds non-custodial. Moreover, Wintermute eliminates the need for third party liquidators by using its own trading infrastructure to execute liquidations, which trades on more than 100 venues and more than 50 blockchain networks, and generates more than $10 billion per day in trading volume.
The initial offering includes two vaults:
- Wintermute USDC Prime: Focused on blue-chip markets (cbBTC/USDC, wstETH/USDC, wBTC/USDC)
- Wintermute USDC Select: Expanded into vetted higher-yield markets with the same foundational approach
To this point, both vaults target around 3.2 percent annual percentage yield (APY) and currently have no deposit, withdrawal, performance, or management fees.
Who is this product for?
Armitage is primarily designed for depositors seeking yield from real borrower demand across, in this case, Morpho’s lending markets. The product is backed by Wintermute’s nine years of active trading experience across every market cycle. The vaults remain permissionless and fully non-custodial, with no Know Your Customer (KYC) required.
What this means for Wintermute and Morpho
For Morpho, it brings a trusted institutional curator to the platform, increasing the number of depositors and attracting more capital. For the overall DeFi ecosystem, it opens the door to new and innovative ways to create or recreate models in decentralized economies. This move is clearly based on strategic expansion. Wintermute expands beyond ‘over the counter’ (OTC) trading and provides liquidity in the DeFi vault management space.