DefiLlama

For a protocol, TVL is the value of all coins in its smart contracts, and for a chain it is the sum of the protocols on that chain. DefiLlama compares the figure with the assets under management of a fund, because both show how much client money a provider holds. Token prices come mostly from the API of CoinGecko, and where no price exists, DefiLlama derives one from a liquid onchain pool.

The methodology counts only assets that users deposited and that carry the risk of the protocol. Borrowed coins, governance tokens of the protocol itself, tokens still in vesting and the native staking of a chain, such as ETH staking, stay out of the core figure. Staking, pool2 and borrowed amounts appear as separate toggles, and a double-count switch keeps a receipt token from counting in two protocols.

DefiLlama tests each deposit with two questions: would the money truly be lost in a hack, and is it put to productive use? A second metric, USD inflows, separates new deposits from price moves, because TVL also falls when the price of the locked tokens drops.

DefiLlama models fees and revenue as an income statement that follows the US accounting standard GAAP. Users pay the fees, and revenue is the part that remains after the supply side, such as liquidity providers or lenders, has taken its share. Revenue is then split into protocol revenue and the holders revenue that flows to token holders.

Figures are booked on the day they accrue, and DefiLlama tracks only numbers that it can check against onchain or trade-level data. Separate dashboards show spot and perpetual volume on decentralized exchanges, options volume and the volume routed through DEX aggregators.

The stablecoin dashboard follows the circulating supply, market capitalization and peg of more than 400 stablecoins, filtered by chain or issuer. It shows when a coin trades below its peg and how supply moves between Ethereum, Tron, Solana and other networks.

The yields section ranks more than 14,000 pools by annual percentage yield, with filters for stablecoins, liquid staking and borrowing rates. DefiLlama states that it neither audits nor endorses the listed protocols, so a high yield in the table says nothing about the risk behind it.

A further dashboard covers real-world assets onchain, such as tokenized treasuries, private credit, real estate and commodities. It records the value of each issued token and how much of it is deposited in DeFi protocols, for example as collateral.

The hacks database lists exploits with date, amount lost, chain, classification and attack technique, and it shows losses in DeFi and at bridges separately. In a review of DeFi risks, the list shows which kinds of protocol have been exploited and by which technique.

The raises section records more than 7,000 venture funding rounds with amount, round, lead investor and valuation. Token unlocks show the vesting schedules of more than 500 protocols, so an analyst can see when large amounts of a token enter circulation. A further list shows protocols that have not issued a token yet, which DefiLlama presents as possible airdrop candidates.

For centralized exchanges, DefiLlama adds up the assets in wallets that it can attribute to each exchange and shows net inflows over a day, a week and a month. Assets held at an outside custodian are left out, because the figure is meant to show how much money customers entrust to the exchange itself. The reserves leave out liabilities, so they give a partial view compared with a full proof of reserves that sets assets against customer balances.

A MiCA overview compares exchanges licensed under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation by order-book depth, trading fees, the cost of a 1,000 dollar on-ramp and off-ramp, and identity checks. Users can filter the exchanges by EU country, and the MiCA CASP list names every licensed provider by home state.

Further dashboards show the total value secured by each oracle network, flows across bridges, daily net flows of spot crypto ETFs and market data for US-listed shares.

The open API is free and returns TVL, fees, revenue and token prices, and DefiLlama asks users to name it as the source. The Pro plan costs 49 dollars a month or 490 dollars a year and adds LlamaAI for questions in plain language, custom dashboards, CSV exports and functions for Google Sheets and Excel. Pro does not include API access, which needs the separate API plan.

The API plan costs 300 dollars a month or 3,000 dollars a year and opens all data categories, such as unlocks, active users and token liquidity. It allows 1,000 requests per minute and one million calls per month, and each further 1,000 calls cost 0.60 dollars. An enterprise plan adds direct database access, hourly data and custom data licenses, and university students can request free Pro and API access.

LlamaSwap queries several DEX aggregators, such as 1inch, CoW Swap and Matcha, and offers the best price among their quotes. DefiLlama charges no fee on the swap, so the user gets the same price as on the chosen aggregator directly. Where an aggregator shares its fee with referrers, part of that existing fee goes to DefiLlama.

The swap runs through the router contract of each aggregator, and DefiLlama uses no contracts of its own for it. The user therefore carries the same contract risk as on the aggregator itself and keeps any claim to a later airdrop of that aggregator.

A protocol team forks the adapters repository on GitHub, writes an adapter that computes its TVL and opens a pull request. The DefiLlama team reviews the request, and the listing appears on the website about 24 hours after the merge. DefiLlama aims to treat all projects alike, both in what counts as TVL and in how fast a listing or an update goes live.

TVL, stablecoin supply, exchange assets and yield data refresh every hour on DefiLlama. Volumes, fees and revenue update hourly for most protocols and once a day at 0:00 UTC for the rest.

DefiLlama first ran on its own funds, donations and grants. Today it earns mainly from fee shares of the aggregators behind LlamaSwap and from subscriptions, and it uses referral links for a number of protocols. DefiLlama is part of Llama Corp, a group that also builds infrastructure, payment, cross-chain and media products.

DefiLlama names the US Treasury and the European Central Bank among the users of its data.

TVL depends on token prices, so a protocol can lose a third of its TVL without a single withdrawal when those prices fall. The figure measures deposits and says nothing about the quality of the code, the governance or the legal position of a protocol, and DefiLlama does not audit what it lists. A bank that looks at DeFi can use the data as a first screen and still has to check contracts, oracles and counterparties separately before any step into institutional DeFi.