The aggregate of assets held inside smart contracts is one of the few size figures in this market that is neither a market capitalization nor a volume. It has its own problems, chiefly that it moves with the price of the collateral, but it is a real balance and it is reported daily.
$75bn
Total value locked, 25 July 2026
+0.5%
Seven-day change
+7.6%
Thirty-day change
−44.5%
Change over one year
Source: DeFiLlama, daily series. Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Total value locked, all chains
Daily, in dollars, at that day’s marks.
Source: DeFiLlama, daily series. Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Why the chain matters to an allocator
An execution environment is a counterparty set. It determines who validates a transaction, how final settlement becomes and when, which custodians will support the asset, and whether there is anybody to call when something fails. Those are the same questions asked of a clearing house. The answers differ sharply between chains and they are rarely in the marketing.
How this was measured
- Total value locked is DeFiLlama’s daily series: the dollar value of assets held in the smart contracts of protocols deployed on each chain, priced at that day’s marks. It moves when capital arrives or leaves and also when the price of the assets already there moves, which is the single most important caveat and is the reason this column reads it against price rather than alone. Fees are protocol revenue as reported by DeFiLlama, aggregated daily. A piece dated one day uses observations through the day before, and every figure names the date it belongs to.
