Morpho curators explained: who runs the vaults
Curators decide where a Morpho vault lends and how much risk its depositors take. Learn what they do, who the big ones are and how to compare them.
Updated
When you deposit into a Morpho vault, you are trusting a curator. The curator is the team that decides which markets the vault lends into, how much it may put in each, and when to pull back. Morpho provides the contracts. The curator makes the risk decisions. This guide explains the job, names some of the teams doing it, and lists what to check before trusting one.
What a curator does
- Chooses markets. Each Morpho market has one collateral asset, one oracle and one LLTV. By enabling a market, the curator accepts all three on depositors' behalf.
- Sets caps. The curator limits how much of the vault can go to each market, or in Vault V2 to shared risks such as one collateral token or one oracle.
- Allocates. Within the caps, the curator's allocator, often an automated bot, moves money between markets to balance yield and available cash.
- Watches and reacts. When a collateral token wobbles, a good curator lowers caps, pulls liquidity and removes the market.
- Sets fees. The curator decides the performance fee and, on Vault V2, any management fee, within the limits in the code.
There are also things a curator cannot do. It cannot take depositors' funds for itself, it cannot skip the vault's timelock to add risk, and it does not guarantee returns. If a market suffers bad debt, depositors carry the loss. Some curators have paid compensation after incidents, but none is obliged to. The roles inside a vault are covered in how Morpho vaults work.
Who the curators are
Dozens of teams curate Morpho vaults. In March 2026 Morpho said more than 30 independent curators were managing billions of dollars on its markets. Among those active at the time of writing (September 2026):
- Steakhouse Financial curates the vaults behind Coinbase's USDC lending and Robinhood's Earn product, and is among the largest curators by deposits.
- Sentora, formed in 2025 when IntoTheBlock merged with Trident Digital, is also among the largest.
- Gauntlet is a risk modelling firm that manages vaults on several lending protocols.
- MEV Capital and Re7 Labs run vaults across many networks, including higher-yield strategies.
- Block Analitica and B.Protocol curate vaults together.
- Hyperithm, kpk (formerly karpatkey) and Clearstar are among the other established names.
Rankings change month to month, so we do not quote them here. The live list, with deposits per curator, is on the curators page.
One warning: anyone can deploy a vault and give it any name. A familiar word in a vault's name proves nothing. Check that the vault really belongs to the curator, for example on the curator's own website, the Morpho app or our curators page.
How to compare curators and vaults
| What to look at | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Size | Large vaults attract scrutiny and deep liquidity, but size alone is not proof of safety |
| Track record | How long the vault has run, whether it has had losses, and how the curator handled them |
| Market exposure | Which collateral tokens, oracles and LLTVs the vault is exposed to, and how concentrated it is in any one of them |
| Liquidity | How much of the vault could be withdrawn right now, and how often its markets hit 100% utilization |
| Fees | The performance fee and any management fee, and whether they can change without notice |
| Timelock | How much warning depositors get before riskier changes take effect |
| Where the yield comes from | How much of the headline rate is borrower interest and how much is temporary token rewards |
The vaults page shows each vault's allocation, liquidity and fee. Comparing the live rate with its 7-day and 30-day averages shows how steady a yield really is.
Red flags
- A yield far above similar vaults with no clear reason. Higher yield usually means borrowers are posting riskier collateral.
- Collateral you cannot explain, such as new synthetic dollars, tokens that are themselves leveraged yield strategies, or tokens with little trading volume.
- Oracles that assume a fixed price for collateral that can lose its value in the market. See Morpho oracles explained.
- High LLTVs on volatile collateral, which leave little room before bad debt.
- A short or zero timelock, or fees that can change instantly.
- Heavy concentration in one market, one collateral issuer or one oracle.
- Markets that are often fully borrowed, which means depositors may have to wait to withdraw.
- Automatic routes into risky markets. Settings that let liquidity flow into a market without a human decision, such as generous public allocator limits, can speed up losses when a collateral token fails.
Most of these warnings come from real events. In November 2025 and March 2026, vaults that had accepted synthetic dollar collateral, priced by oracles that did not follow its market price, took losses when those tokens collapsed, while vaults without that exposure were not hit. Those cases are described in Morpho risks explained, and realized losses are listed on the bad debt page.
Common questions
What does a Morpho curator do?
A curator chooses which lending markets a vault may use, sets caps on each, moves money between them through an allocator, reacts to risks and sets the vault's fees.
Is a curator responsible if my vault loses money?
Curators do not guarantee returns, and losses from bad debt fall on depositors. Some curators have paid compensation after incidents, but they are not obliged to.
Who are the biggest Morpho curators?
In 2026 Steakhouse Financial, Sentora and Gauntlet were among the largest, but rankings change often. The curators page on this site shows live deposits per curator.
Can a curator change a vault's strategy after I deposit?
Yes, within the vault's rules. Changes that add risk, such as adding a market or raising a cap, must first wait out the vault's timelock, so check how long that timelock is.