How Pledgestocks works.

Loans, deposits and liquidations run on Morpho Blue. Pledgestocks chooses the markets, the price feed behind each one and how much USDG the vault may lend into it. Below is how each piece works, and what can and cannot change.

On this page
  1. Introducing
  2. Overview
  3. Getting started
  4. Markets
  5. How a market gets listed
  6. Interest rates
  7. The Earn vault
  8. Withdrawals
  9. Risk framework
  10. Oracles
  11. Liquidations
  12. Who can change what
  13. Contracts
  14. $PLDG and staking
  15. Roadmap
  16. FAQ
  17. Changelog

Introducing

Pledgestocks lets you borrow against tokenized stocks, ETFs and ETH without selling them. Post NVDA, AAPL, SPY or any of the 15 launch assets on Robinhood Chain as collateral, draw USDG against it, and keep every share. On the other side, lenders supply the USDG and earn the interest those borrowers pay.

What you can do

  • Borrow. Draw USDG against 10 stocks, 4 ETFs and ETH, up to 57.5% of the collateral's value (81.0% for SGOV, 70.0% for ETH), with interest that accrues by the second and no repayment schedule. The simulator sizes a loan at live prices today.
  • Earn. Deposit USDG into Pledgestocks Core USDG, an ERC-4626 vault that lends only into the launch markets and earns you the interest borrowers pay. No lockup. The vault is not deployed yet; the deposit form under Earn opens with it.
  • Markets. One isolated market per asset, each priced by its own Chainlink feed, with live prices on the Markets table.
  • Swap. Move between USDG and the stock tokens without leaving the site. Today it previews the amount at oracle prices; real swaps are coming.
  • Portfolio. Connect a wallet and see your USDG and stock-token balances, valued at oracle prices, read straight from the chain.
  • $PLDG and staking. The Pledgestocks token and its staking come after the markets and vault have run in public.

What sets it apart

  • You keep every share. Collateral stays yours and stays in Morpho Blue; you take it back in full once the debt is repaid.
  • Risk stays in its own market. Every asset has its own isolated market, so a bad day in one stock cannot touch your other positions.
  • Real prices, fixed rules. Markets are priced by Chainlink, never by thin pools, and a market's oracle and liquidation threshold can never be changed after it is created.
  • Nothing to trust blindly. Morpho Blue holds the money, not Pledgestocks. Neither Morpho Blue nor the vault has a pause (the token issuers do; see Withdrawals), cap increases wait 48 hours in public, and the vault fee only ever touches interest: 0% for the first 90 days, then 10%.
  • Skin in the game. Pledgestocks seeds the vault with its own USDG before anyone else deposits, and it stays there.

Overview

Pledgestocks is not a lending protocol of its own. Collateral, deposits, interest and liquidations are handled by Morpho Blue, an immutable contract already deployed on Robinhood Chain. What Pledgestocks adds is the configuration on top: which stock, ETF and ETH tokens can be borrowed against, the Chainlink feed that prices each one, the liquidation threshold each market is created with, and how much of the vault's USDG is lent into each.

There are two sides. Borrowers post a tokenized stock, ETF or ETH token and draw USDG against it without selling. Lenders deposit USDG into the Pledgestocks Core USDG vault and earn the interest those borrowers pay.

Pre-launch. No market or vault is deployed yet, and nothing on this site can move funds. Prices and wallet balances are read live from Robinhood Chain; everything else describes how Pledgestocks will run at launch.

Getting started

A loan takes five steps once the markets open. Until then, the borrow simulator sizes one with live prices.

  1. Connect a wallet on Robinhood Chain, chain ID 4663. Connecting only reads balances; no transaction is sent without your signature.
  2. Hold a supported token. Any of the 15 tokens listed under Markets, in the wallet you connected.
  3. Post collateral and borrow. Deposit the token into its market and draw USDG. This interface caps a new loan at the market's borrow limit: 57.5% of the collateral's value for stocks and index ETFs, 81.0% for SGOV, and 70.0% for ETH.
  4. Watch the health factor. It falls as the collateral's price falls, and below 1.00 the position can be liquidated. Stock feeds pause from Friday evening to Sunday evening US time, so leave room for a gap when they resume.
  5. Repay and withdraw. Repay any amount at any time; interest accrues by the second and there is no schedule. Once the debt is zero, all of the collateral can be withdrawn.

Markets

Every asset has its own isolated market on Morpho Blue: one collateral token, USDG as the only loan asset, one oracle and one liquidation LTV. A loss in one market stays with that market's lenders, and the vault limits how much it has in each market with a cap.

AssetTypeLiquidation LTVBorrow limitPlanned cap
NVDA NVIDIAStock62.5%57.5%$2,000
TSLA TeslaStock62.5%57.5%$1,000
AAPL AppleStock62.5%57.5%$2,000
MSFT MicrosoftStock62.5%57.5%$2,000
AMZN AmazonStock62.5%57.5%$2,000
GOOGL AlphabetStock62.5%57.5%$2,000
META Meta PlatformsStock62.5%57.5%$1,000
AMD Advanced Micro DevicesStock62.5%57.5%$1,500
ORCL OracleStock62.5%57.5%None yet
TSM Taiwan SemiconductorStock62.5%57.5%$1,500
SPY SPDR S&P 500 ETFIndex ETF62.5%57.5%$2,500
QQQ Invesco QQQ TrustIndex ETF62.5%57.5%$2,500
SGOV iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETFT-bill ETF86.0%81.0%$5,000
EWY iShares MSCI South Korea ETFIndex ETF62.5%57.5%None yet
ETH EtherCrypto77.0%70.0%$2,500

10 stocks, 4 ETFs and ETH, with planned caps adding up to $27,500. Caps start small on purpose and rise only as liquidity is measured. None of these markets has been created yet.

How a market gets listed

A token becomes a market only when all of these hold:

  1. A Chainlink feed on Robinhood Chain. Each market is priced by a Chainlink feed read through Morpho's standard oracle factory. On-chain pool prices and TWAPs are not used; thin pools are far easier to push around than a Chainlink feed.
  2. A threshold Morpho allows. Morpho Blue only accepts liquidation LTVs its governance has enabled. On Robinhood Chain those are 38.5%, 62.5%, 77%, 86%, 91.5%, 94.5%, 96.5%, 98%. When the right number falls between two of them, Pledgestocks rounds down.
  3. Volatility that fits the threshold. The price has to move slowly enough, weekend gaps included, that the chosen liquidation LTV leaves liquidators time to act before a loan turns into a loss.
  4. A rehearsal first. Markets are created on testnet and every flow is exercised end to end before the mainnet market is created, because its parameters can never be changed afterwards.

Assets looked at and left out of the first release:

AssetWhy not yet
GLDNo Chainlink feed on this chain yet; only a pool TWAP.
SLVChainlink-priced, but silver moves more than the launch set.
USOOil futures roll and gap; wants a lower threshold and more data.

Interest rates

Pledgestocks does not set rates. Every market uses Morpho's Adaptive Curve IRM (0x2BD3…0fa1), which prices a loan from utilization: the share of a market's supplied USDG that is currently borrowed.

  • A curve around 90% utilization. The model keeps a rate at target. At full utilization the borrow rate is four times that rate, and at zero utilization it is a quarter of it.
  • The curve moves with time. While utilization stays above 90%, the rate at target keeps rising, roughly doubling every five days at full utilization; below 90% it drifts down the same way. A new market starts at 4% a year, and the rate at target stays between 0.1% and 200%.
  • Lenders earn from what borrowers pay. The supply rate is the borrow rate times utilization, less any market fee. Morpho governance can switch on a fee of up to 25% of a market's interest.

Interest accrues every second and is added to the debt whenever the market is used. There is no fixed term and no repayment schedule.

The Earn vault

Pledgestocks Core USDG (pUSDG) is a MetaMorpho v1.1 vault created through Morpho's vault factory (0xD371…9E20) and follows the ERC-4626 standard. You deposit USDG and receive pUSDG shares; the vault supplies that USDG to the launch markets, and each share is worth more USDG as interest comes in.

The vault lends only into markets it is configured for, and never more than a market's cap. Planned caps add up to $27,500. Pledgestocks deposits its own USDG first, and it stays there. The deposit form is under Earn.

Roles

RoleWhat it can do
OwnerA multi-signature Safe. Appoints the roles below and sets the performance fee.
CuratorAdds markets and raises caps. Every increase waits 48 hours in public; lowering a cap takes effect at once.
GuardianCan cancel a pending cap increase before its timelock ends.
AllocatorMoves USDG between the vault's markets, never above a cap.

Fees

The performance fee is 0% for the first 90 days, then 10%, and it is taken only from interest earned, never from deposits. The contract allows up to 50% and a fee change is not timelocked, so any change is announced here in advance.

Withdrawals

Lenders. There is no lockup and no notice period. Redeeming pUSDG pulls USDG from the vault's markets in the order of its withdraw queue. The limit is liquidity: USDG that is lent out comes back only when borrowers repay or new lenders arrive. When a market is fully used its rate climbs quickly (see Interest rates), which is what brings that USDG back. The other limit is bad debt that has not been covered: the share price still counts the lost USDG, so early redemptions are paid in full and the shortfall falls on whoever redeems last (see Risk framework).

Borrowers. Collateral can be withdrawn at any time as long as the loan stays within the market's liquidation LTV afterwards. Morpho checks that threshold, not the lower borrow limit this interface uses.

No pause in the contracts. Neither Morpho Blue nor the vault has a function that stops withdrawals, and Pledgestocks cannot add one. The tokens are different: USDG and the stock tokens are upgradeable contracts with pause controls run by their issuers, and USDG can also freeze addresses. An issuer action could stop deposits, withdrawals, repayments and liquidations.

Risk framework

The parameters aim to make a sharp drop end in a liquidation rather than a loss for lenders. They cannot remove risk, only size it.

Thresholds

Stocks and index ETFs are created at a 62.5% liquidation LTV. SGOV, a fund of Treasury bills maturing within three months, is created at 86.0%, and ETH, which trades around the clock in deep markets, at 77.0%. This interface opens loans only up to a lower borrow limit in each case: 57.5%, 81.0% and 70.0% respectively. A loan opened right at that limit is liquidated after a price drop of 8.0% for stocks and index ETFs, 5.8% for SGOV or 9.1% for ETH, so most borrowers should stay well below it.

What can still go wrong

  • Gaps when trading resumes. Stock and ETF feeds follow 24-hour weekday trading. They stop around 8pm New York time on Friday and resume at 8pm on Sunday, about 48 hours, and longer over market holidays. News from that window arrives at once, and a price can reopen below a position's liquidation point hours before the regular Monday open.
  • Bad debt. If a position's collateral runs out before its debt is repaid, Morpho Blue writes the rest off against that market's lenders. A MetaMorpho v1.1 vault does not lower its share price when that happens; it records the shortfall as lost assets, and unless the shortfall is covered, the depositors who withdraw last cannot redeem in full. Early on the vault may be most or all of a market's lenders, so it would take most of that market's bad debt. Caps limit the dollars it can have in any one market: at most $5,000, in SGOV.
  • Liquidity. Lenders can withdraw only what is not lent out, and borrowers can borrow only what lenders have supplied.
  • Oracles. A feed that stops or reports a wrong price affects its market directly, and a market's oracle cannot be replaced. See Oracles.
  • The tokens. USDG is valued at exactly $1 in every market. How a stock token tracks its share, and how it handles events such as splits, is up to its issuer, not Pledgestocks. Issuers can also pause or upgrade their token contracts, and the USDG issuer can freeze addresses; any of these can stop funds moving in a market.
  • Smart contracts. Morpho Blue, the vault, the oracles and the tokens are all code, and a bug in any of them could lose funds.

Oracles

Each market reads one Chainlink feed through Morpho's standard oracle factory (0xB7c1…cdF2). The feed gives the collateral's price in dollars and USDG is treated as exactly $1, so no second feed is involved.

AssetChainlink feedLatest priceUpdated
NVDA0x379E…9F15$216.346m ago
TSLA0x4A11…7C38$362.2024m ago
AAPL0x6B22…2cD0$333.847h ago
MSFT0x45C3…Af2E$492.619h ago
AMZN0xD5a1…651C$248.437h ago
GOOGL0xF6f3…638b$346.3117m ago
META0x7C38…71b1$682.1923m ago
AMD0x943A…2C72$521.079m ago
ORCL0x0e6a…A844$146.5466m ago
TSM0x874c…Fc2F$422.096h ago
SPY0x3197…9f6A$758.9364m ago
QQQ0x8090…C2ae$709.338h ago
SGOV0xa0DF…7A11$101.068h ago
EWY0xEFdf…e1D1$177.362h ago
ETH0x78F3…d3A9$2,450.8625m ago

Morpho's standard oracle passes on a feed's latest answer without checking how old it is. A stock feed can go quiet for up to about 72 hours over a normal weekend, depending on when its last Friday update landed, so this interface treats a feed as stale after 72 hours and stops offering loans against it. Over a holiday weekend a feed can be flagged stale until it resumes. Whether to add an on-chain age check is decided before the markets are created, because a market's oracle cannot change afterwards.

Robinhood stock tokens can report a display multiplier, and SGOV currently reports 1.005102. That figure is deliberately left out of the oracle. Chainlink marks a token that accrues against something else with an underlying asset and a separate exchange-rate feed, as it does for wstETH; these equity feeds carry neither and are published as a tokenized price, so they price one token. Were that ever wrong the feed would be quoting the bare share, which values collateral slightly low rather than slightly high, so reading it directly errs the safe way.

Liquidations

A position's health factor is its collateral's value times the liquidation LTV, divided by its debt. Once it falls below 1.00, anyone can liquidate it: repay some or all of the debt and take collateral worth that amount plus an incentive. There is no close factor, so a single liquidation can repay the whole loan.

The incentive depends only on the liquidation LTV, through Morpho Blue's formula min(1.15, 1 ÷ (1 − 0.3 × (1 − LLTV))):

Liquidation LTVMarketsLiquidator incentive
62.5%NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META, AMD, ORCL, TSM, SPY, QQQ, EWY12.68%
77.0%ETH7.41%
86.0%SGOV4.38%

If a liquidation leaves debt but no collateral, the remainder is written off against the market's lenders (see Risk framework).

Worked example

Post 10 SPY at $760: $7,600 of collateral. The borrow limit is 57.5%, so you could draw up to $4,370. Draw $3,040 (40%) and the health factor is 7,600 × 0.625 ÷ 3,040 = 1.56. Liquidation starts if SPY falls to $486.40, a drop of 36%. A liquidator who repays the whole $3,040 at that price receives $3,425.35 of SPY.

Who can change what

ComponentControlled byCan it change?
Custody, interest math, liquidationMorpho BlueNo. The contract code is immutable.
Market feeMorpho governanceYes, up to 25% of a market's interest, which lowers what lenders earn.
Market oracle, liquidation LTV, rate modelFixed at creationNo. A mistake means a new market.
Vault caps and market listPledgestocks multisigYes. Increases wait 48 hours; a guardian can veto.
Performance feePledgestocks multisigYes, up to 50%. Not timelocked, so announced in advance.
WithdrawalsNo one at PledgestocksMorpho Blue and the vault have no pause; exits are limited by liquidity and any uncovered bad debt. Token issuers can pause their tokens, and USDG can freeze addresses.

Contracts

Everything runs on Robinhood Chain (chain ID 4663). Addresses open in the Blockscout explorer so each one can be checked.

Morpho Blue0x9D53…1010
Adaptive Curve IRM0x2BD3…0fa1
Chainlink oracle factory0xB7c1…cdF2
MetaMorpho vault factory0xD371…9E20
USDG0x5fc5…d168
15 Pledgestocks marketsNot created
Pledgestocks Core USDGNot deployed
$PLDG tokenComing soon

$PLDG and staking

$PLDG launches after the markets and the vault have been running in public, and staking opens after $PLDG launches. Stakers receive a share of the vault's performance fee, paid in USDG, so staking rewards come from interest borrowers actually pay rather than from new tokens. Supply, allocation, the staking APR and the lockup terms are not set yet; they are published on this site before anything is sold or staked.

There is no $PLDG contract yet. Until an address is listed here, treat any token using the name as unofficial.

Roadmap

  1. 01InterfaceThis site, live prices and the position simulator.Now
  2. 02RehearsalMarkets and vault created on testnet; every flow exercised end to end.Next
  3. 03Safe and timelockMultisig owner, guardian and a 48-hour cap timelock on mainnet.Next
  4. 04CanaryMainnet markets with small caps, seeded with our own USDG.Later
  5. 05Open bookCaps raised against measured liquidity; public dashboard of every change.Later

FAQ

When does Pledgestocks launch?

There is no date yet. The next steps are a full rehearsal on testnet and a multisig with a 48-hour timelock, then mainnet markets with small caps; see Roadmap. Launch will be recorded in the Changelog. Until then, nothing on this site can move funds.

Is there a $PLDG token I can buy?

No. There is no $PLDG contract yet, so any token using the name today is not ours. $PLDG launches after the markets and the vault have run in public; see $PLDG and staking.

Does Pledgestocks hold my funds?

No. Collateral sits in Morpho Blue, and deposits sit in the vault, which lends them into Morpho Blue markets. No Pledgestocks address can withdraw them. The multisig does decide where the vault lends, but a new market or a higher cap waits 48 hours in public first, so depositors who disagree can leave before it applies, liquidity permitting. See Who can change what.

What can I borrow against, and how much?

Any of the 15 assets under Markets: 10 stocks, 4 ETFs and ETH. You always borrow USDG. This interface opens a loan of up to 57.5% of the collateral's value (81.0% for SGOV, 70.0% for ETH), and liquidation starts at 62.5% (86.0% for SGOV, 77.0% for ETH).

Can I be liquidated over the weekend?

Yes, from Sunday evening US time. Stock feeds follow 24-hour weekday trading: they stop around 8pm New York time on Friday and resume at 8pm on Sunday (midnight UTC), so the price your loan is judged on stays put through Saturday. When the feed resumes it can jump straight to a new price and keep moving through thin overnight trading, hours before the regular Monday open. Interest also keeps accruing while the price stands still. If either takes your health factor below 1.00, the position can be liquidated right away, so borrow well under the limit. See Liquidations. ETH is the exception: its feed updates around the clock, so there is no weekend gap.

How is the interest rate set?

By Morpho's Adaptive Curve IRM, not by Pledgestocks. The rate rises as more of a market's USDG is borrowed and keeps adjusting over time around 90% utilization. Live rates appear once each market opens; see Interest rates.

What fees are there?

Borrowers pay interest and network gas, with no fee to open, hold or repay a loan; a borrower who is liquidated also gives up the liquidator incentive. Lenders pay the vault's performance fee on interest earned: 0% for the first 90 days, then 10%. Morpho governance can also switch on a market fee of up to 25% of interest, which would lower what lenders earn.

Can I withdraw whenever I want?

Lenders have no lockup, but only USDG that is not lent out can leave at once, and uncovered bad debt falls on whoever redeems last. Borrowers can take collateral back at any time as long as the loan stays within the liquidation LTV. In both cases, an issuer pausing USDG or a stock token would block the transfer. See Withdrawals.

What happens if USDG loses its $1 peg?

Every market values USDG at exactly $1, so a depeg on its own does not change health factors or trigger liquidations. Borrowers still owe the same number of USDG, and lenders are repaid in USDG that would be worth less than a dollar.

Why aren't GLD, SLV and USO listed?

They were looked at and left out of the first release:

  • GLD. No Chainlink feed on this chain yet; only a pool TWAP.
  • SLV. Chainlink-priced, but silver moves more than the launch set.
  • USO. Oil futures roll and gap; wants a lower threshold and more data.

See How a market gets listed.

Can a market's rules change after it opens?

No. A market's oracle, liquidation LTV and rate model are fixed when it is created, and fixing a mistake means creating a new market. What can change is the vault (which markets it lends into, their caps and its fee) and, on Morpho's side, the market fee. See Who can change what.

Changelog

Changes to markets, caps, fees and this site are recorded here, newest first. A fee change appears here before it takes effect.

  1. Parameter

    Five markets added

    AMD, ORCL, TSM and the EWY ETF join at a 62.5% liquidation LTV with $1,500 planned caps each, and ETH (the chain's WETH, Chainlink ETH / USD) at 77% with a $2,500 cap. Fifteen markets, planned caps totalling $30,500.

  2. Parameter

    Brand and ticker renamed

    The project is now Pledgestocks and the token ticker is $PLDG (previously Ballast and $BLAST). Nothing else about the token changed: there is still no contract, and supply, allocation and utility are still open.

  3. Parameter

    Staking reward source set

    $BLAST stakers will receive a share of the vault's performance fee, paid in USDG. The share, the APR and any lockup are still open and will be published before the first deposit is accepted.

  4. Docs

    Weekend feed schedule corrected

    The docs said stock feeds pause from Friday close to Monday open. On-chain updates show they pause from about 8pm New York time on Friday and resume at 8pm on Sunday, so prices can move and positions can be liquidated on Sunday evening, before the Monday open.

  5. Docs

    Docs page published

    Markets, interest rates, the Earn vault, withdrawals, risk, oracles, liquidations, governance and contracts, with an FAQ. Launch parameters as documented: 10 markets at a 62.5% liquidation LTV (86% for SGOV), planned caps totalling $22,000, and a vault performance fee of 0% for the first 90 days, then 10%.

  6. Interface

    Site online with live prices

    The interface went live on Cloudflare, reading Chainlink prices and wallet balances directly from Robinhood Chain. No market or vault is deployed, and every transaction button stays disabled.