DeFiLlama is the most widely used free DeFi analytics platform. The site publishes TVL (total value locked), stablecoin supply, DEX volume, fees, raises, and bridge volume across 350+ chains and 5,000+ protocols. The methodology is open-source, the API is public, and most "TVL" numbers cited elsewhere on the internet are DeFiLlama under the hood. This guide explains how DeFiLlama works, what each dashboard tracks, and where the data comes from.
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The platform launched in 2021 and grew into the de facto industry source for chain-and-protocol economic data. DeFiLlama publishes everything for free; the paid tier (Pro at $300/month) mostly serves API users with high request volume. As of 2026, DeFiLlama tracks DeFi TVL in the hundreds of billions and approximately $310 billion in stablecoin supply across all chains.
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DeFiLlama is a public aggregator. The model: an open-source codebase that adapters call into for each protocol, computing the protocol's TVL from its onchain state. Adapters live in the DeFiLlama-Adapters repo on GitHub. Anyone can submit a new adapter for a new protocol; the maintainers review and merge.
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The output is a unified dashboard where users see TVL ranked by chain, protocol, category (DEX, lending, restaking, yield, etc.), or any custom slice. Adjacent products — DeFiLlama Stablecoins, DeFiLlama Yields, DeFiLlama Raises — extend the same model to other data types.
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The product is free in a way that affects how it's used. There's no login, no paywall on the main site, no rate limits on the public API for normal traffic. DeFiLlama's free API serves billions of requests per month — most major analytics sites, wallet apps, and dashboards source TVL data from it.
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TVL on DeFiLlama is the sum of token balances held by a protocol's contracts, valued in USD.
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The adapter for each protocol does three things:

The result is summed and reported as TVL. The methodology is documented per-protocol — clicking on any protocol page on DeFiLlama shows the adapter source code link.
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Edge cases. Liquid staking tokens (stETH, mSOL) sometimes get counted twice — once as the underlying ETH/SOL and once as the LST in a lending protocol. DeFiLlama's methodology page explains how double-counting is handled. Lending TVL excludes borrowed assets to avoid the same problem.
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Price feeds. DeFiLlama runs its own price service — for major tokens, it sources from CoinGecko/CoinMarketCap; for thinly traded tokens, from DEX pools. Price discovery for new tokens can lag, which causes TVL spikes when a new token gets priced for the first time.
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Six dashboards do most of the work.
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The main page. Total DeFi TVL — currently around $160 billion — with breakdowns by chain, protocol, and category. Filters let you compare any subset (e.g., "Solana lending protocols only"). Time-series charts go back to 2020.
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The DeFiLlama Stablecoins page tracks total supply, supply by issuer, supply by chain, and chain-level concentration. As of early 2026, the top three issuers are Tether (~$185B USDT), Circle (~$75B USDC), and Sky/MakerDAO (~$8B USDS+DAI). For deeper context on stablecoin flows, see our stablecoin onchain analytics guide.
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Daily and cumulative DEX volume by protocol and chain. Sourced from each DEX's own volume adapter. Useful for understanding where trading activity concentrates — Uniswap on Ethereum, Raydium and Jupiter on Solana, PancakeSwap on BNB Chain.
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Daily fees paid by users and revenue retained by protocols. Methodology is per-protocol. The aggregate view shows which protocols are economically biggest at a given time.
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The DeFiLlama Yields page ranks DeFi pools by APY. Filterable by protocol, chain, asset, and lock-up. The most-used DeFi yield aggregator — partly because the data is free, partly because the breadth (50,000+ pools) exceeds any paid product.
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Tracks crypto fundraising rounds — protocol, amount, lead investors, valuation. Useful for spotting which subsectors are getting capital.
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The DeFiLlama public API is one of the most used free APIs in crypto.
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Free tier: no auth required, no rate limit for normal traffic. The API serves the same data as the dashboards — TVL by protocol, stablecoin supply, yields, prices. Most "TVL chart" widgets on other crypto sites fetch from DeFiLlama.
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Pro tier: $300/month for higher rate limits, dedicated support, and access to additional endpoints. Most users never need Pro — the free tier is sufficient.
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Common endpoints:

The API returns JSON. Examples and full schemas at the docs page above.
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The free aggregator model has limits.
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No wallet labels. DeFiLlama tracks protocols and chains; it doesn't label individual wallets. For wallet-level analysis, use Nansen or Arkham.
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No SQL queries. The data model is fixed. Custom analytics fall back to Dune or Allium.
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TVL ≠ activity. A protocol with $1B TVL but no trading volume is dormant. DeFiLlama publishes both metrics but the headline TVL number can mislead. Always check fees and volume alongside TVL.
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New chain coverage lags. When a new chain launches, DeFiLlama needs adapters for protocols on that chain before TVL appears. Lag is typically days to weeks for major chains, longer for niche ones.
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For breadth, nothing matches DeFiLlama. 350+ chains is more than any paid platform tracks. For free, the API is unrivaled.
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For depth — wallet labels, smart-money tags, custom SQL — paid platforms win. DeFiLlama deliberately stays at the protocol/chain level. The team has resisted feature creep into wallet-level analytics, which keeps the surface area manageable.
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Most analysts use DeFiLlama for the breadth + free API and pair it with one paid tool (Dune, Nansen, Allium) for deeper analysis.
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The platform's outsized influence in DeFi analytics comes from a few specific choices.
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Open-source adapters. Anyone can audit the methodology behind any TVL number. The repo has thousands of contributors and is updated daily.
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Free API. Most "TVL" numbers cited elsewhere — in news articles, analyst reports, project decks — come from DeFiLlama's free API. The reach makes the platform a de facto industry standard.
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Twitter presence. The DeFiLlama Twitter account (and the lead maintainer 0xngmi) tweet sector observations and methodology updates. This keeps the platform visible to new audiences.
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Institutional usage. Despite the free model, institutional users (research firms, exchanges, regulators) cite DeFiLlama in formal reports. The methodology rigor and adapter transparency support this.
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The financial model — Pro API plus ecosystem partnerships — works because the free product is genuinely useful. Most users never need to upgrade.
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The Stablecoins page is one of the most cited dashboards. Methodology details worth knowing:
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Supply per chain. Computed as mints minus burns at the issuer contract on each chain. For chains where the stablecoin is natively issued (Ethereum, Solana, Tron for USDT), this is direct. For chains where the stablecoin is bridged in, the supply reflects the bridged variant — USDC.e on Avalanche, USDC on zkSync via the official Circle bridge, etc.
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Multi-chain stablecoins. A single issuer (Tether, Circle) deploys on multiple chains. DeFiLlama's "USDT total supply" is the sum across all natively issued chains. The dashboard breaks this down so users can see per-chain shares.
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Pegged vs algorithmic. DeFiLlama categorizes stablecoins by their stability mechanism — fiat-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, algorithmic. The category affects how supply is interpreted. A fiat-backed stablecoin's supply maps to dollars in reserve; an algorithmic stablecoin's supply maps to whatever the protocol's mechanism produces.
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Reserve transparency. The "Peg" view shows whether each stablecoin is currently trading at $1.00. Pegs that drift sustained from $1.00 are flagged. Useful for spotting issuer-specific stress.
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For a deeper look at stablecoin methodology, see our stablecoin onchain analytics guide.
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Five workflows recur across DeFiLlama users.
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Sector tracking. Filter the protocols list by category — "Liquid Staking," "Lending," "Restaking," "Bridges," etc. — and watch TVL trends for the category. Useful for spotting sector rotations before they become consensus.
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Yield hunting. Open the Yields page, filter by asset (USDC, ETH, SOL), sort by APY, and inspect the top pools. The methodology is transparent — each pool links to the underlying protocol. Cross-check the APY against the protocol's own UI before deploying capital.
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Stablecoin monitoring. The Stablecoins page tracks supply by issuer and chain. Watch for sudden mints or burns at the issuer level — they often precede market events. Daily refresh cadence is sufficient for this use case.
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Chain-level adoption. Compare chains by TVL, protocol count, and TVL trend. Useful for "which L2 is winning" questions. Combine with Artemis's active-address metrics for a fuller picture.
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Investor research. The Raises page tracks fundraising rounds. Filter by category and date to see which subsectors are getting capital. The data isn't comprehensive (private rounds may not be disclosed) but it's the best free source for this.
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For more on stablecoin tracking specifically, see our stablecoin onchain analytics guide.
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DeFiLlama has spawned a family of related products and dashboards that reuse the same data backbone.
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LlamaSwap. A DEX aggregator built on the DeFiLlama codebase. Routes trades across major DEXes and aggregators (1inch, Paraswap, KyberSwap) to find the best execution. Free to use, not a primary product but heavily used by data-savvy users.
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Llamafolio. A wallet portfolio tracker that uses DeFiLlama's protocol metadata to identify positions in DeFi protocols. Free, open-source. The pattern: paste an address, see all DeFi positions across all chains.
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DeFiLlama Pro Dashboards. Curated dashboards built on top of the API for niche use cases — liquid staking comparison, perps DEX leaderboard, restaking trackers. The Pro tier hosts these.
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Bridge dashboards. Cross-chain bridge volume tracking. DeFiLlama's bridges page ranks bridges by volume and TVL. Useful for understanding where cross-chain liquidity is moving.
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The ecosystem demonstrates the value of an open-source aggregator — third parties build on top of the same data, multiplying the platform's reach.
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DeFiLlama's TVL methodology has been contested several times. Three notable debates.
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Restaking double-count. EigenLayer's launch in 2023-2024 created TVL accounting questions. Is ETH staked in EigenLayer "TVL" if it's also TVL in Lido? DeFiLlama's resolution: count it once at the lowest layer (Lido), exclude it from EigenLayer's headline TVL by default, and offer an "include restaking" toggle. The methodology page documents the choice.
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Liquid staking aggregation. Similar issue. ETH in Lido is reported as Lido TVL. stETH used as collateral in Aave is sometimes counted as Aave TVL. DeFiLlama excludes the LST from secondary protocol TVL by default to avoid double-counting.
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Cross-chain stablecoins. "USDC supply" needs disambiguation between native and bridged variants. DeFiLlama's stablecoin product distinguishes them — native USDC and USDC.e are listed separately. Many other sources don't, leading to inflated supply numbers in reports.
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The willingness to publish methodology and engage with critiques is part of why DeFiLlama is trusted as a reference. Disputes get logged in the GitHub repo.
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DeFiLlama publishes stablecoin supply and chain-level liquidity context. Teams that build on Eco often use DeFiLlama's stablecoin dashboard to understand where USDC, USDT, and other stables are concentrated — which informs routing and treasury decisions. The two products operate at different layers: DeFiLlama at observation, Eco at execution. For background on what gets observed, see our stablecoin onchain analytics guide.
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Yes. The website is free with no login. The public API has no rate limits for normal traffic. The team funds operations through the Pro API tier (high-volume customers) and partnerships. There are no paywalls on the main site.
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Per-protocol accuracy depends on the adapter. Adapters live in a public GitHub repo — anyone can audit them. For major protocols (Aave, Uniswap, Lido), adapters are well-vetted. For smaller protocols, accuracy varies. The methodology page documents known edge cases.
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TVL updates roughly hourly. Stablecoin data updates a few times a day. Yields update hourly. The data is not real-time — for sub-minute updates, use a streaming product like Allium Datastreams.
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Yes. Submit a pull request to the DeFiLlama-Adapters repo with an adapter that computes the protocol's TVL. Maintainers review and merge. Once merged, the protocol appears on the site within hours.
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CoinGecko tracks tokens — prices, market cap, trading volume. DeFiLlama tracks protocols — TVL, fees, revenue. They're complementary. Most analysts use both: CoinGecko for token data, DeFiLlama for protocol data.
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