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
Offers - funds that are approved for spending on a non-custodial platform, but not actually deposited into the platform contracts
Treasury - unvested funds in the platform's treasury, not including the platform's own governance token.
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.