Wall Street heavyweight Apollo Global Management, which oversees roughly $940 billion in assets, is stepping further into crypto through a new agreement with decentralized lending protocol Morpho.

Under the cooperation deal, Apollo or its affiliates may acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over the next four years, representing 9% of the token’s total supply. The purchases can be made through open market buys or private transactions and are subject to ownership caps and transfer restrictions.

Beyond the token stake, Apollo and the Morpho Association said they will collaborate to support lending markets built on Morpho’s onchain infrastructure. Morpho currently ranks among the largest DeFi lending platforms, with about $5.8 billion in total value locked, offering lending markets and curated yield vaults.

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The announcement sparked a short-term rally, with MORPHO rising nearly 18% over the weekend, though the token remains down sharply over the past year.

Apollo’s move follows a broader push by traditional asset managers into blockchain-based credit and tokenized finance, signaling that institutional players are increasingly viewing DeFi infrastructure as part of the future financial system.

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