Every month, we’re diving into the state of the overall DeFi sector: the biggest developments, changes and updates across the ecosystem. All in one place.
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DeFi Stats We’re Watching
Total value locked in DeFi: $85.29B (-11.84%)
Monthly DEX volume: $5.73B (+32.95%)
Monthly perp volume: $21.01B (+37.41%)
Lido: $20.05B (-6.68%)
Aave: $15.27B (-40.91%)
Binance Staked ETH: $8.45B (+0.55%)
Hyperliquid: Inflow: $8.2B / Outflow: $6.58B / Netflow: $1.62B
Polygon POS: Inflow: $1.88B / Outflow: $1.55B / Netflow: $332.5M
Base: Inflow: $1.46B / Outflow: $1.28B / Netflow: $179.5M
Solana: $83.1M
Ethereum: $59.5M
Hyperliquid: $53.6M
The metrics are accurate at the time of publication. The percentage change is over a 30-day period.
Noteworthy DeFi Developments
Kelp DAO, a liquid restaking protocol, lost an estimated $292M in what is so far the biggest DeFi hack of 2026. The attackers, who have been linked to North Korea's Lazarus hacking group, tricked the protocol's lone bridge approver into authorizing a fake message that released 116,500 rsETH (roughly 18% of the token's supply). The shock cascaded across DeFi, with Aave, SparkLend, and Fluid freezing their rsETH markets to contain bad debt. Soon after, more than $13B in TVL exited across multiple DeFi platforms in the following 48 hours.
Bitwise has updated its filing to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF), under the ticker BHYP, that would hold Hyperliquid’s HYPE token. The proposed fund, custodied by Anchorage Digital, would stake some of its holdings and pass roughly 85% of staking rewards to investors in exchange for a 0.67% management fee. The listing would make HYPE the first altcoin to attract serious ETF attention from major issuers: Bitwise, Grayscale, 21Shares, and VanEck.
Pendle partnered with Saturn to bring Strategy's STRC preferred stock onchain. The Nasdaq-listed stock targets 11.5% annualized yield, and is funded by Strategy's BTC reserves . STRC TVL on Pendle now sits at roughly $318M.
A DeFi App We Tried in [Month]
What it does: Pendle is a decentralized trading platform that lets users tokenize and trade the yield generated by assets like liquid staking tokens, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets.
In simpler terms, it allows users to buy and sell future interest. On a technical level, it splits each deposit into two components: a Principal Token (PT) representing the underlying value at maturity, and a Yield Token (YT) representing the future yield stream.
As the largest yield trading protocol in DeFi, Pendle has settled tens of billions of dollars in fixed yield to date.
Our thoughts: Pendle is targeted at traders, brokers and those familiar with financial instruments that generate interest. Its markets page surfaces dozens of pools across asset categories, including liquid staking tokens, stablecoins, and RWAs, with fixed APY, implied APY, long yield APY, TVL, and maturity dates all visible at once. For an experienced DeFi user, this is exactly the information needed to compare strategies side-by-side. But for a newcomer, the surplus of information may be hard to understand.
The app supports a number of wallets, including MetaMask, Base and Phantom, and operates across 10 chains: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Hyperliquid, Base, Plasma, Arbitrum, Optimism, Sonic, Mantle and Berachain. This allows users to access native yield opportunities wherever they already hold assets without having to bridge them to a compatible blockchain.
Unlike lending-first protocols like Aave or Morpho that provide a variable lending rate, Pendle lets users decide whether they want fixed yield (by buying PT at a discount), leveraged exposure to a specific yield rate (by buying YT), or boosted returns from providing liquidity.
This decision framework makes Pendle extremely powerful, but requires an understanding of implied yield curves, time decay, and the specific drivers of each underlying yield source.
This complexity makes Pendle more a tool for experienced traders rather than casual users looking to farm yield passively. Where Aave and Morpho appeal to traditional lenders and borrowers, Pendle rewards users who understand fixed-income concepts and are willing to engage with maturity dates, discount mechanics, and yield direction views.
Overall, Pendle delivers a level of yield expressiveness that no other DeFi protocol currently offers. The tradeoff is a UX that is squarely aimed at sophisticated users rather than casual or new users.
Stats on the project:
TVL: $1.66B
Annualized revenue: $8.8M
30-day DEX volume: $722.8M
Average APY: 7.83%
Disclaimer: This section reflects our analysts’ subjective impressions from testing apps and differs from our otherwise fact-driven content. Opinions are based on our evaluation; readers should conduct their own research.
More DeFi Updates
Jito, the team behind Solana's largest liquid staking token and most of its underlying block-building infrastructure, unveiled JTX, a self-custodial trading app that combines spot, perpetuals and prediction markets
Aave launched on MegaETH with deposit incentives on the chain's USDm stablecoin and Ethena's USDe
Fireblocks, has embedded Morpho's vault into its institutional custody platform, allowing banks, fintechs, exchanges and trading firms to earn yield on idle stablecoins
Zerion Wallet integrated the Uniswap API to power native in-wallet swaps, giving users access to aggregated v2/v3/v4 liquidity across 18+ chains
GMX launched 24/7 perpetual markets for WTI Crude, Brent Crude, and Natural Gas on Arbitrum
Ether.fi committed $3 billion in ETH to ETHGas for a three-year term, supplying validator capacity to its Ethereum blockspace market
DeFi word of the month:
Definition: Impermanent loss occurs when the price of an investor’s deposited token changes from the price at which they had deposited it.. This kind of loss is called "impermanent" because it only becomes real if they withdraw their tokens while prices are still different. If prices return to their original ratio, the loss disappears.
Used in a sentence: I deposited ETH and USDC into a Uniswap pool to earn trading fees, but the price of ETH rose 15% during the time my position was open. The impermanent loss from the shift in token prices ended up wiping out most of the fees I had collected.
This is the State of DeFi. May Edition.
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.
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