# DeFi TVL methodology

## 1. Overview

DeFi TVL measures the total USD value of a specific asset deposited into onchain applications, broken down by the protocol and product (venue) into which it is deposited. The metric is updated daily and covers only completed UTC days. It serves as a leading indicator of an asset's utility as productive collateral or liquidity across DeFi. Each integrated venue contributes an independently maintained TVL delta pipeline, and coverage expands as additional protocols are integrated.

## 2. Data sources

- **Protocol TVL delta pipelines**: Daily token-level net TVL changes sourced from each integrated venue's own measurement pipeline, spanning EVM-compatible chains (Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, and others) and Solana. Integrated venues include lending and yield markets (Aave, Spark, Morpho, Venus, Kamino, Flux, Instadapp, and Pendle), DEX, AMM, and vault products (Uniswap, Aerodrome, Aero, Orca, Raydium, Meteora, xSwap, PancakeSwap, and Mamo), and the exchange platform Hyperliquid, whose TVL reflects state-derived stablecoin reserve balances.
- **Asset metadata**: Token addresses, symbols, and canonical asset identifiers drawn from the asset universe registry.
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds, applied to convert token balances to USD.

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Collect per-venue TVL deltas

- **Purpose**: Aggregate daily net token TVL changes from each integrated venue into a unified dataset.
- **Logic**: For each venue, daily net TVL changes are retrieved and grouped by chain, product, token symbol, and token address, producing one `delta_tvl` value per `(venue, chain, product, token, day)` combination. These grouped deltas are unioned across all integrated venues. Hyperliquid TVL is reported at project level; its `product_id` is null.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (UTC day), `data_id` (venue identifier), `chain_id`, `product_id` (venue product; null for Hyperliquid), `token_symbol`, `token_address`, `delta_tvl` (net change in token units for the day)

### Component B: Compute running TVL balance

- **Purpose**: Derive a point-in-time cumulative token balance from the daily deltas.
- **Logic**: A cumulative sum of `delta_tvl` is computed within each `(venue, chain, product, token_symbol, token_address)` partition, ordered by timestamp. The result represents the total token balance held by that combination at the close of each observed day.
- **Key fields**: `tvl` (cumulative token balance at day close)

### Component C: Fill missing days

- **Purpose**: Produce a continuous daily time series even when no balance-changing activity occurs on a given day.
- **Logic**: For each partition, days with no recorded delta are filled by carrying the most recent `tvl` value forward. For all venues except Hyperliquid, filling extends through the most recently completed UTC day. For Hyperliquid, the series is additionally capped at the last day for which complete stablecoin reserve data is available; dates beyond that point are not filled, regardless of how recently the UTC day closed.

### Component D: Convert to USD

- **Purpose**: Express token balances in USD using end-of-day price feeds.
- **Logic**: End-of-day price feeds are joined to each row by chain, token address, and date. The USD value is computed as `tvl × price_usd`. Rows for which no price is resolved are excluded from output. Hyperliquid is treated as a strict exception: a nonzero token balance that cannot be matched to a price raises a hard error rather than being silently excluded, ensuring stablecoin reserve TVL is never understated due to a missing price.
- **Key fields**: `tvl` (USD value of the token balance), `price_usd` (end-of-day token price)

### Component E: Asset mapping and final aggregation

- **Purpose**: Attach canonical asset identifiers and produce the final per-venue, per-asset daily TVL.
- **Logic**: Each `(chain_id, token_address)` pair is joined to the asset universe registry to assign a canonical asset identifier. Where a single token address maps to more than one asset, a deterministic selection keeps the join one-to-one and prevents double-counting. USD TVL is summed within each `(timestamp, venue, chain, product, asset)` group and rounded to four decimal places.
- **Key fields**: `asset_id` (canonical asset identifier), `tvl` (final USD balance, rounded to four decimal places)

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

DeFi total value locked (TVL)

Value of the asset deposited into onchain venues (lending markets, DEX pools, vaults), broken out per venue.

DeFi TVL

WETH

Depositing Ether into the WETH contract mints the same amount of WETH, and withdrawing burns WETH and returns the Ether, so every WETH is backed 1:1 by Ether held in the contract.

Wrapped Ether (WETH) is an ERC-20 version of Ether, so smart contracts such as exchanges and lending markets can handle Ether like any other token.

WETH is the wrapped Ether contract (WETH9). No company issues it: anyone can wrap Ether into WETH or unwrap it back.

WETH WETH

DeFi TVL

DeFi TVL

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown

Venue breakdown