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: $91.20B (+2.89%)
Monthly DEX volume: $248.58B (-11.26%)
Monthly perp volume: $634.17B (+1.22%)
Lido: $24.28B (-0.85%)
Aave: $18.55B (+1.28%)
Morpho: $11.27B (+15.88%)
Robinhood Chain: Inflow: $723.8M / Outflow: $307.9M / Netflow: $415.9M
OP Mainnet: Inflow: $636.0M / Outflow: $241.5M / Netflow: $394.5M
Hyperliquid: Inflow: $11.5B / Outflow: $11.2B / Netflow: $277.8M
Solana: $160.5M
Hyperiquid: $75.5M
Ethereum: $53.9M
The metrics are accurate at the time of publication. The percentage change is over a 30-day period.
Noteworthy DeFi Developments
Deutsche Bank plans to launch digital asset custody for institutional clients.
Initial custody will be limited to select cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, and stablecoins like USDC, EURC, and EURAU.
Robinhood made a series of announcements during its HOOD Summit 2026:
The release of Robinhood Agents, which allow users to build trading strategies, do research, and trade autonomously.
Perpetual futures trading for U.S. stocks alongside 24/7 trading for select equities.
The launch of Robinhood Social, an all-in-one social media trading app.
Lido unveiled Lido Lend, its new lending and borrowing protocol.
The product is a fork of Morpho Blue, and is aimed at passive, long-term holders wishing to earn additional yield on their assets.
Lido Lend claims to reduce risk by limiting lending to blue-chip assets like ETH and stETH, and is said to have preset logic that can hold up under stressful market conditions.
A DeFi App We Tried in October: Jupiter Lend
What it does: Jupiter Lend is a borrowing and lending feature built into the Jupiter app. It lets users pick from several options, including Earn, Borrow, deposit into Smart Vaults, or create looped strategies.
Lending on this app works similar to other apps like Aave or Morpho, which let you deposit and withdraw assets at any time. Jupiter Lend currently offers seven lending vaults, with yields ranging from 2.47% to 5.77% APY.
A few key features include the ability to amplify yields through leveraged strategies, which loop liquidity through multiple rounds of lending and borrowing, as well as Smart Vaults, which allow deposits to double as both lending and AMM liquidity, which allows user funds to earn interest on their loans as well as swapping fees from Jupiter Exchange.
Our thoughts:
Jupiter Lend maintains a straightforward and easy to use interface, making it accessible to anyone with a basic understanding of DeFi applications. Each feature has a short description and a link to further documentation which answers most questions users may have.
Beyond its own lending markets, Jupiter Lend also offers access to Bitwise’s Ethena Lending Protocol and Sentora, another USDe-focused lending market. These partnerships expand the application’s distribution and showcase Jupiter’s ability to offer more to its customers.
I was a little annoyed by the fact that, once funds are deposited, users are hit with a message telling them not to swap or send their deposit-receipt tokens to another wallet as they would no longer be redeemable. This limits user flexibility and requires them to return to Jupiter in order to withdraw their funds. While it seems like a small inconvenience, the ability to use depositor tokens across other DeFi applications, or redeem them through a third party DEX would make Jupiter Lend more accessible.
Stats on the project:
Data as of October 9, 2026
TVL: $1.15B
30-day protocol revenue: $197,400
30-day holder revenue: $98,700
Active loans: $1.05B
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
Hyperliquid Labs unstaked 3.75 million $HYPE, worth $317.6 million at the time of writing, and will distribute them to institutions via an OTC deal.
Hyperliquid launched manual borrowing, allowing users to borrow USDC or USDT by using HYPE or BTC as collateral.
Bloomberg listed Hyperliquid perpetuals on its terminal.
Aave launched the Aave Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing AI agents to read data and build transactions on Aave V3 and V4.
Stove Finance launched U.S. and South Korean tokenized equities through Uniswap.
DeFi word of the month: Utilization Rate
Definition: The share of a lending pool’s deposits that is currently borrowed. Higher utilization pushes interest rates up, and at 100% utilization, lenders can’t withdraw until borrowers repay or new deposits arrive.
Used in a sentence: During a market rally, the utilization rate hit 95%, causing borrow rates to jump and forcing depositors to wait before being able to withdraw their capital.
This is the State of DeFi. October 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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