Top 8 DeFi Categories by TVL: Liquid Staking Takes the Lead

Recent data from the analytics platform CryptoRank revealed that liquid staking is the dominant decentralized finance (DeFi) category by total value locked (TVL).

On October 5, CryptoRank and DeFi TVL aggregator DeFiLlama shared an overview of the DeFi landscape, showing the top eight DeFi categories by TVL.

According to the data, liquid staking is the dominant DeFi category, with $20 billion in total value locked. Among the top five categories were liquid staking, lending and borrowing protocols, decentralized exchanges (DEX), bridge protocols, and collateralized debt positions (CDP).

Liquid staking topped the list with a total value locked of $20 billion, followed by lending and borrowing protocols, which had a TVL of $14.8 billion. Number three was DEX, with a TVL of $11.6 billion. Next on the list were bridge protocols and CDP, with a TVL of $9.1 billion and $7.8 billion, respectively.

The list of the top DeFi categories ranked by TVL also included service, yield farming, and real-world assets. Service is ranked number six with a total value locked of $4.2 billion, followed by yield farming with a $3.4 billion TVL. Lastly are real word assets, which CryptoRank described as “the new DeFi trend”, with a TVL of $2.4 billion, an 84.6% increase over the past thirty days.

In terms of blockchain dominance, the total value locked in DeFi remains highly concentrated on Ethereum, according to the data. The top three chains are Ethereum, Tron, and BNB Chain.

Ethereum ranked first with a TVL of $55 billion, which resembles 67.3% of the TVL in the DeFi landscape. Ethereum is dominating with a wide gap, as the second chain has $6.9 billion.

Number three was BNB Chain, with a TVL of $4.6 billion and a percentage of 5.6, followed by Arbitrum and Avalanche, which had a TVL of $2.8 billion and $1.54 billion, respectively. Ton has 1.74% of the TVL in the DeFi landscape with $1.42 billion, followed by Polygon with a TVL of $1.16 billion. The last two chains on the list were Solana and Optimism, with a TVL of $1.37 billion and $902 million, respectively.