What to include as TVL?

TVL

Total value locked inside a platform / protocol's own contracts by users.

TVL Filters

We separate TVL into different types. This lets users decide what they do and do not want to include in the dashboard data. These types are:

  • Staking - the platform's own tokens

  • Pool2 - staked LP tokens where one side of the market is the platform's own governance token.

  • Borrows - deposits borrowed from the platform

  • Vesting - Tokens that are not circulating or not issued yet. This mostly applies to vesting protocols where a token with 10M mcap and 1B FDV could have 500M locked, in these cases it makes no sense for TVL from that token to be 500M when mcap of it is only 10M

  • Offers - funds that are approved for spending on a non-custodial platform, but not actually deposited into the platform contracts

Not TVL

  • Assets that aren't on the blockchain, such as bonds or fiat currency. We don't consider the dollars stored on Tether's bank account as TVL, for example.

  • We also don't accept assets that your protocol generates and are locked into other protocols, as that's the later protocols TVL, not your project's. See this for rationale.

  • We don't count native token staking. For example, ATOM staking to secure the Cosmos hub isn't counted.

Edge Cases

  • Real-World Assets (RWA): At present, we only track the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), such as bonds, treasuries, and real estate. Only tokenized representations of these assets, issued and traded on the blockchain, are counted towards TVL.

Unproductive Assets

We are improving the Total Value Locked (TVL) metric by removing unproductive or artificial liquidity. Some assets are deposited only to earn rewards or boost metrics without taking real market risk or providing value to users. These positions often come from a small number of large wallets and do not support actual liquidity for the ecosystem. In some cases, TVL may also be inflated through circular or non-backed assets, making the data misleading. Our goal is to ensure TVL reflects real economic activity and remains transparent for all users.

While we are not placing blame on any team or chain, there may be instances where whales or large liquidity providers attempt to farm incentives without taking meaningful risks. We have also observed cases where unproductive assets are included in TVL through undisclosed arrangements or recycled liquidity. We understand that some projects may have adopted these practices to remain competitive or support growth during early stages. However, these positions can distort the perception of real usage and user participation.

There are common cases to be considered:

  • Liquidity pools with a few providers and no trading activities.

  • Assets deposited into lending pools with a few lenders and no borrowers.

  • Assets deposited into yield/staking pools from a few depositors only to earn points or rewards.

  • Wrapper assets that lack verified or provable backing.

  • Assets without real user deposits or that can no longer be withdrawn by users.

Our intention is not to call out or discredit any individual protocol. Instead, we want to give all teams and chains the opportunity to align with a more accurate and honest standard. By excluding these unproductive assets, we ensure that TVL remains a reliable and trustworthy metric. This supports meaningful liquidity, real user engagement, and a more representative measurement of value across DeFi.

Our commitment is to provide the community with accurate data, improve transparency, and ensure fair representation for all participants in the ecosystem.

Unproductive Assets-Protocol List

Momentum

We removed TVL from unproductive liquidity pools, these pools have BTC wrapper assets with no trading activities:

  • YBTC.B/satYBTC.B - 0x584e68589d2ce655c47fa88d75090258c0d8b5b16c3d643e0ddc2b71e81e6546

  • MBTC/brBTC - 0xb64d0313a3a542e3d8f8066df767e2459d356377ca15ff003ef5e16629569b4d

  • BTCvc/eBTCvc - 0x1d182ec3743611393c06e810662dcf70efcfd2e16d855dfdb4dee6abc1bf9ce0

DeSyn Liquid Strategy

We removed TVL from unproductive vaults. These vaults have only a few depositors, no users deposits. We removed vaults on these blockchains:

  • BSC

  • Mode

  • Ethereum

  • Plume

  • Core

  • Hemi

  • B2 Network

  • GOAT Network

  • AILayer

  • Bitlayer

Saros DLMM

We removed unproductive pools on Saros DLMM that have only a few liquidity providers with no trading activities:

  • UNIBTC/XBTC - 7hc6hXjDPcFnhGBPBGTKUtViFsQuyWw8ph4ePHF1aTYG

  • BFBTC/CBBTC - 9BJ1xTWSuSTqSpgh6fuCmsArHNVA2Fmu5PtDmC6kTAF6

  • BFBTC/UNIBTC - HtyaKeqMTd9o289XKZWc8CSJTdp8xABgXrRDWw1wp96W

  • BFBTC/WBTC - DfohHvQNtXdN7ZgB6AQxNZiqNm2u528mAhY8MTeNEcAd

  • BFBTC/ZBTC - 66AFL6NKwwKkWr5bbvigviEcMzWCMXWhypch1KsQhoCH

  • UNIBTC/WBTC - J5ix1fmNfLfpyYr5MDVw4U9dqqCNG8oVvrSkGF3cTwtB

Stream Finance

We removed looping/leverage assets from Stream Finance vaults.

There are wallets deposit some initial USDC, WBTC, ETH on ethereum to mint xUSD, xBTC, xETH , they bridge xUSD, xBTC, xETH to other chains, they used xUSD, xBTC, xETH as collateral to borrow USDT, USDC, deUSD, they use swap all borrowed tokens to USDC, WBTC, ETH, deposit back to xUSD, xBTC, xETH

We removed all bad debts from Stream Finance after their financial loss report: https://x.com/StreamDefi/status/1985556360507822093

Cygnus

We delisted Cygnus from our website because we detected they mint and stake unbacking assets BTC and ETH.

unagiswap

We removed unproductive liquitiy pools that have a single liquidity provider with no users trading activities.

  • USDa/sUSDa pool with 70M - 0x332df42cf1c2c4874edb62f1f498424d2c2e928a

Avalon Finance

We removed BTC wrapper assets with no borrow from lending pools.

  • Merlin - WBTC

  • Kaia - USDa

  • BoB - SolvBTC, SolvBTC_BBN

  • Taiko - SolvBTC

  • BSC - USDX, sUSDX

Sumer.money

We removed unproductive assets with no borrow from lending pools.

  • Meter - suUSD, suETH

  • Base - suUSD, suETH

  • Arbitrum - suUSD, suETH, suBTC

  • Ethereum - suUSD, suETH, suBTC

  • Core - suUSD, suBTC, solvBTC.m

  • Berachain - suUSD, suBTC

  • Hemi - suUSD, suETH, suBTC, brBTC

  • Bitlayer - suBTC

  • GOAT Network - suETH, suBTC, enzoBTC

  • ZkLink - suBTC, solvBTC.m, M-BTC, solvBTC.b

  • B2 Network - suUSD, suBTC

  • Monad - suUSD

Segment Finance

We removed satUSD token from lending pool which has no borrow on BoB chain.

VaultCraft

We removed TVL from unproductive vaults. These vaults have only a few depositors, no users deposits.

Ethereum:

  • 0xcF9273BA04b875F94E4A9D8914bbD6b3C1f08EDb

  • 0x77e88cA17A6D384DCBB13747F6767F30e3753e63

  • 0xdB06a9D79f5Ff660f611234c963c255E03Cb5554

Base:

  • 0x023577b99e8A59ac18454161EecD840Bd648D782

Hemi:

  • 0x748973D83d499019840880f61B32F1f83B46f1A5

  • 0x0b8E088a35879f30a4d63F686B10adAD9cB3DBE1

iZiSwap

We removed unproductive liquitiy pools that have a single liquidity provider with no users trading activities.

Hemi pools:

  • bfBTC/hemiBTC - 0x469a5066578e22a1222cc78b2ccaca602db6bb4a

  • bfBTC/hemiBTC - 0xFE1c507Be86F977B61d12D1DA3c95D0dEeB1B86A

  • brBTC/suBTC - 0x98a3a18583138474aedd2ceec034cba1fa783613

  • mBTC/uniBTC - 0xe9635693b7606f1914c0cd698065ec84267a62a1

Taiko pools:

  • mBTC/uniBTC - 0x5e1e8c9c77b0de88f1c4597a3c145b0c7abcf485

Bluefin AMM

We removed TVL from unproductive assets in liquidity pools that have no users trading activities

  • BTCvc-vBTCvc - 0x90811fd5409c14d29ec40f59bf7158c52dffa20bc11eb33873670addbf149aa2

Magma Finance

We removed TVL from unproductive assets in liquidity pools that have no users trading activities

  • enzoBTC/xBTC - 0x478394dd654b698d295eec67a7ea95bcb8d560e2949cbbbcb162f3d524d4ca8e

Pell Network

We removed TVL from unproductive assets in vaults that have a few deposit addresses

BOB - SolvBTC Restaking vault, there is only one depositor https://explorer.gobob.xyz/tx/0xf624ccb21311a92c1690e56a22235e28eced190ea39ab6d6ce18a51c56aeb671

Core - uBTC Restaking vault, there are a few depositors https://scan.coredao.org/tx/0xbec633767d7606ef539640e65e0fe8a9cdc8c8d6c7dc404b286ab38d32abbfa1 https://scan.coredao.org/tx/0x45a5258730fd80d20d2f52ef787e11204f07da2e557e39cae948b0b756671e86 https://scan.coredao.org/tx/0x95c32c817c501c36cdeb2d02b618c9296b664d462614eb92624f833110188d78

Zetachain - pumpBTC Restaking vault, there is only one depositor https://zetascan.com/tx/0x2f77bb7e06096c1296c5079445cae6ef9e29a0b91a15fe2558bc90693a9f7e86

Bitlayer - suBTC vault has only one depositor https://www.btrscan.com/tx/0x59a1596e4d43f0e31258a5dc5f53c7d3dd353a1ce887841e933724bf290e3c98 https://www.btrscan.com/tx/0xa0154c09665070d28cfc484fe7c6358bf732ac894f64e0003029935542df4af1 https://www.btrscan.com/tx/0xaec872b3d29f192c24ccb41d72428be2a95f00398e7c28b1a4125334ed3b4449

Plume - esBTC vault has only one depositor https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0x639ceb9257cf5e14d738c5253b586f2c3d24dbc5595ae9de63c07d6eef768a8a https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xa29388e964f7f7eac7f7c771073fd67edf1cbf0736bcd0532e6c86550dabd169 https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0x98938144405da515ab7f93b1d89b85b73a6bc2fc2cf5836fc82c156431057eec https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xa4988e9b29f3f81b0fe1725adeba66038e7023f51272f9bf368a6bdbbc159ed5 https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0x1208586ac1142cff780ce6d7b137fbb67396c97f8bcdef9f7cfb523901447d60 https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xf52b0e861cd71071ace96328a2f64d2bca3a808fe84f8cf403cae7e68172de57

Plume - YBTC.B vault has only one depositor https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xa0ffd15e22d676a3b9727682b821d08db5b1c6f231317d40cf554477854eafb7 https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xf4fb7f263d24d8f66a551143fa9978ac3d401d1187fea26b689092be62adf5da https://explorer.plume.org/tx/0xb4a70f25662697c2657e29781d265e186efbbf40151799100473c09d65d6a7fc

Goat - nETH vault has only one depositor https://explorer.goat.network/tx/0xe302ec93a029fc503b22d8e62cfa6e3ea8bed46bfb3881e6c733b2e0e90b68f8

Goat - rnETH vault has only one depositor https://explorer.goat.network/tx/0xbb25df627ab1c8853d0ba0ff725229a4a3372bb05638c95093f319947104d28e

Rootstock - uniBTC vault has only two deposits https://explorer.rootstock.io/tx/0x662f1c457321b9935f7e53173543fc00601d3fe8cc67eb221021c618ebbaf327 https://explorer.rootstock.io/tx/0x111fd08c24fc70bc3024f74107815030ee7f10c664584002a22c1b08310a38f5

Kodiak V3

We removed TVL from unproductive liquidity pools that have no trading activities

  • SolvBTC.BNB/SolvBTC - 0x24619368bad314d1635a54027c5231b9b83c4a7e

  • brBTC-uniBTC = 0xe9703de93406cc31441a57ce5d08272ed545d32b

Concrete

We removed TVL from unproductive assets in vaults that have a few deposit addresses

Ethereum - ctDeltaWeETH vault, there is only one depositor https://etherscan.io/tx/0xce658f57edc490798ddc55e3f67169e3190fe23afe50a4ce4ca411d0714edada

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