Apollo Global Management (APO) is moving deeper into crypto, striking a deal that could make the $938 billion asset manager a major token holder in a decentralized lending platform.
The firm signed a cooperation agreement with the Morpho Association, the French non-profit organization behind the Morpho protocol, which allows Apollo and its subsidiaries to buy up 90 million tokens tokens over the next four years.
The purchases may be made through open market purchases, over-the-counter transactions and other arrangements and are subject to ownership caps and transfer restrictions. Galaxy Digital UK acted as exclusive financial adviser to Morpho, according to the document.
In addition to the token purchases, Apollo and Morpho said they will work together to support lending markets built on Morpho’s protocol. Morpho provides infrastructure for onchain lending markets and curator-managed vaults that allocate assets across them. The protocol is controlled by holders of the MORPHO token. The 90 million tokens will translate to 9% of the protocol’s governance token total supply.
The deal adds to Apollo’s expanding blockchain footprint. Last year, the firm made a “seven-figure” investment in the blockchain project which focuses on bringing traditional financial products onchain. Apollo’s credit strategies have already been tokenized via third parties. Tokenization specialist Securitize issues ACRED, a token that provides exposure to the Apollo Diversified Credit Fund, while Anemoy offers ACRDX, which tracks Apollo’s global private and public credit strategies.
The move comes as other asset managers are testing decentralized financial rails. Earlier this week, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said it will make shares of its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, BUIDL, tradable on decentralized exchanges Uniswap and bought an undisclosed amount of the protocol’s governance token UNI .
