For the first time, the three most trusted names in crypto, DL Research, DL News, and DefiLlama, are uniting to produce a singular, definitive resource: The State of DeFi report.
This report is designed to serve as an industry benchmark, grounded in verified data, investigative journalism, and institutional-grade analysis. In a sector filled with fast cycles and shifting narratives, The State of DeFi offers a structured view of where the decentralised economy is heading.
By combining the raw analytical power of DefiLlama’s data terminal with the editorial rigor of DL News, this collaboration establishes a new standard for how the industry records its history and plots its future.
Why we created it
Decentralised finance has entered a steadier phase. Pure speculation is giving way to modular scaling, broader integration with traditional assets, and growing participation from major institutions. Even with this progress, there are still major gaps in clarity and interpretation.
The sector does not yet have a single trusted resource that connects macro trends, on-chain activity, and focused sector insights. Builders, analysts, and investors often stitch information together from scattered dashboards, fragmented data, and inconsistent reporting.
DL Research, DL News, and DefiLlama want to change that. The goal is to produce a document that the entire ecosystem can rely on, one that clearly maps where DeFi stands, where it is heading, and how investors and builders across the industry can move forward in the sector.
What it will accomplish
The State of DeFi is built to serve as a compass for the industry, delivering value across three main pillars:
1. Transparency
Using verified, granular on-chain data from DefiLlama, the report delivers clear visibility into how DeFi is actually changing. It cuts past surface-level indicators and focuses on the actual movement of capital, user participation, and protocol earnings that define the sector’s health.
2. Insight
The report decodes the defining themes of the year, offering deep analysis into the sectors that matter most:
- Stablecoins: Tracing the regulatory, technological, and usage shifts that positioned stablecoins as core financial infrastructure, from institutional adoption to payments, yield, and mainstream settlement.
- Capital and revenue: Mapping where value was actually earned in 2025, which sectors sustained durable fee generation, and how collapsing infrastructure costs reshaped application economics.
- The trading stack: Examining the convergence of issuance, spot, and perpetual markets, the transition from AMMs to intent-based execution, and the emergence of institutional-grade onchain trading.
- Credit, yield, and collateral: Analysing lending markets, staking and restaking dynamics, duration-based yield products, and the growing role of tokenised real-world assets.
- Liquidity topography: Exploring how activity and liquidity distribute across layer 1s, layer 2s, and Bitcoin-native architectures, and how chain-level specialisation is reshaping market structure.
- Execution and market integrity: Detailing the evolution of MEV supply chains, order flow routing, selective privacy, and the increasing institutional lens on execution quality.
- Treasuries, governance, and token design: Assessing how airdrops, governance participation, and treasury architecture have professionalised, and how power and incentives are concentrating.
- Looking ahead: Framing the structural questions that carry into 2026, from sustainability and concentration to execution, regulation, and institutional participation.
3. Navigation
For builders, investors, and policymakers, this report acts as a common reference point for clearer decision-making. It offers a dependable structure for understanding fast-growing segments, spotting early signs of risk, from contract flaws to regulatory changes, and identifying the openings that could change the next market cycle.
Beyond the raw figures, the report adds depth through interviews, case studies, and focused sector breakdowns, ensuring the people and efforts behind these developments are fully represented.
A durable record of DeFi
The State of DeFi is not intended as a moment-in-time summary. It is built as a reference that reflects how decentralised finance now functions in practice, across markets, infrastructure, and governance.
By grounding analysis in verified onchain data and observed behaviour, the report provides a clear account of how DeFi has matured, where constraints have emerged, and which structures continue to endure as conditions change. By serving that role, it has secured a lasting place in the industry’s analytical record.