DeFiLlama

DeFiLlama (its team writes DefiLlama) is a free website that tracks how big DeFi apps are. It is best known for total value locked, or TVL: the dollar value of the tokens held in an app's smart contracts. It also tracks fees, revenue, trading volume, yields, stablecoins and hacks. In October 2026 the site listed 558 blockchains and more than 7,000 apps ranked by TVL. You need no login to use it. The code behind the numbers is open for anyone to read, and DeFiLlama has no token. Paid plans add an AI helper called LlamaAI, custom dashboards and a larger API.

How DeFiLlama calculates TVL: adapters and methodology

DeFiLlama works out TVL with adapters. An adapter is a small script, one per app, that reads the app's contracts and adds up the tokens held there. The script is public, so anyone can check it. DeFiLlama's methodology page gives the rule in one line: "we consider the value of any tokens locked in the contracts of a protocol / platform as TVL."

Most adapters are written and kept up to date by each app's own community, then checked in public on GitHub. Token prices come mainly from CoinGecko, with on-chain prices as a backup. Most numbers refresh every hour, the DeFiLlama FAQ says.

Three rules keep the totals from being inflated:

• A deposit is counted once inside a protocol, even if its receipt token is deposited again elsewhere in the same protocol.
• Liquid staking protocols are tracked, but are left out of a chain's TVL by default.
• Tokens that are not yet circulating, such as unvested team allocations, are excluded.

You can change these defaults yourself. Toggles on every chain page let you add staking, liquid staking, double-counted deposits and vesting tokens back in. That matters when two people quote different TVL numbers for the same chain: they may both be reading DeFiLlama with different settings.

What DeFiLlama tracks beyond TVL: fees, revenue, yields and stablecoins

DeFiLlama now covers far more than TVL. Its dashboards split into a dozen families, and the counts below are the ones shown on the site on 6 October 2026.

• Fees and revenue: fees are what users pay, and revenue is the part a protocol keeps. DeFiLlama also publishes "holders revenue", the share passed to token holders.
• Yields: close to 17,000 lending and farming pools, with APY and pool size.
• Stablecoins: supply by coin and by chain for more than 400 stable assets.
• Volume: spot DEXs, perpetual futures exchanges, options, bridges and aggregators.
• Hacks: a public record of about 1,300 exploits and the value lost in each.
• Tokens: unlock schedules, treasuries, fundraising rounds, and a list of more than 4,000 tokenless protocols that might one day airdrop.

Recent additions have moved past DeFi. In September and October 2026 DeFiLlama launched Find My Exchange, which compares more than 50 exchanges on cost and liquidity, a crypto card comparison covering 30 cards, and an expanded equities dashboard with earnings calendars. It also tracks real-world asset tokens, ETFs and companies that hold crypto in their treasuries.

DeFiLlama changes its methods in public too. On 21 September 2026 it standardised open interest so that every perpetuals exchange is counted on one side only. Before that, exchanges that reported both the long and short side looked twice as large.

LlamaAI and the DeFiLlama app for iOS and Android

LlamaAI is DeFiLlama's AI research assistant. You ask a question in plain English and it answers from DeFiLlama's own database, with charts. It launched on 7 November 2025 for paying subscribers, DL News reported, after about a year of development.

Free users now get a small daily allowance of questions. The exact number has changed several times and differs between the website and the mobile app, so check the subscription page before relying on it. A Pro plan removes the limit and adds five deep research reports a day.

The DeFiLlama mobile app for iOS and Android is built around LlamaAI. Its listing describes investment theses with a "conviction score", price forecasts, strategy backtests and scheduled alerts. On 2 October 2026 DeFiLlama announced a LlamaAI upgrade and a "Today in DeFi" summary on its homepage written by the assistant.

Treat these outputs as a starting point. An AI model can misread data or state a wrong answer with confidence, and a forecast band is only a simulation.

LlamaSwap: DeFiLlama's swap aggregator of aggregators

LlamaSwap is a swap tool that compares other swap tools. It asks several DEX aggregators, including 1inch, CoW Swap and Matcha, for a price on your trade and shows you the best one. DeFiLlama said on 29 September 2026 that LlamaSwap was live on 22 chains.

DeFiLlama charges no fee on top. The LlamaSwap page says you get "the exact same price" as going to the chosen aggregator directly. DeFiLlama earns money by attaching a referral code, so aggregators that share revenue pass part of their own fee back.

LlamaSwap has no contracts of its own. Your trade runs through the router contract of whichever aggregator wins, so you take on that aggregator's contract risk and nothing extra. An optional "Hide IP" setting routes price requests through DeFiLlama's server, so the aggregators do not see your IP address. DeFiLlama still labels the product as beta.

Is DeFiLlama free? Pro and API pricing

Yes. The dashboards and the public API are free, and no account is needed. DeFiLlama sells three paid tiers on top, with prices as listed on its subscription page and pricing docs in October 2026.

One detail catches people out: the Pro plan does not include premium API access. If you want the paid endpoints, such as token unlocks and inflows, you need the API plan. Extra calls beyond the monthly million cost $0.60 per 1,000. Pro has a seven-day free trial, and both paid plans can be bought with crypto.

Solana data on DeFiLlama: TVL, app revenue and stablecoins

DeFiLlama has a Solana chain page that listed 536 Solana apps on 6 October 2026. Next to TVL it shows stablecoin supply, DEX and perps volume, and chain fees. It also shows "app revenue": the sum of what the apps on a chain earn, leaving out stablecoins, liquid staking apps and gas fees.

One quirk matters when you read Solana numbers there. Liquid staking is left out of the chain total by default. So an app such as Binance Staked SOL, which DeFiLlama files under liquid staking, shows up in the Solana rankings with its own TVL while that value is missing from the headline figure. Switch on the "Liquid Staking" toggle and the Solana total rises.

Solana Compass often uses DeFiLlama figures in its own reporting. Recent examples include Solana leading every chain for app revenue in August 2026, a September snapshot of Solana and Ethereum chain fees, and the record Solana stablecoin supply reached on 25 September 2026.

Who DeFiLlama is best for

DeFiLlama suits anyone who wants to compare protocols or chains quickly without paying. It is strongest for these readers:

• Investors and researchers checking whether a protocol's deposits, fees and revenue are growing or shrinking.
• Yield seekers scanning pools across chains before depositing.
• Journalists and analysts who need a neutral, citable number.
• Developers who want free market data through an API.
• Protocol teams that want to be listed and benchmarked against rivals.

DeFiLlama is a weaker fit if you need to ask your own questions of raw chain data. It shows you finished numbers for each app and chain. It is not a tool for writing your own queries, and its main dashboards do not break Solana down by validator.

Is DeFiLlama legit, safe and accurate?

DeFiLlama is a legitimate and widely used data source. Its subscription page shows the logos of central banks and regulators under "Trusted by", and a European Central Bank paper published in September 2026 cited DeFiLlama data six times, according to DeFiLlama. Browsing the site carries no financial risk, because you connect nothing and deposit nothing. The real risks are about how much weight you put on the numbers.

A listing is not an endorsement. DeFiLlama does not audit protocols. A high TVL tells you money is there today. It says nothing about whether the contracts are safe.

The data is only as good as each adapter. DeFiLlama's FAQ says it prefers adapters that read the chain directly, but some rely on a protocol's own API or subgraph. That means a protocol can, in places, be the source of its own numbers. Errors are fixed in the open, though they can sit on the site until someone spots them.

Some figures cannot be verified at all. On 5 October 2025 DeFiLlama removed perpetuals volume for the exchange Aster. Founder 0xngmi said Aster's volumes were "mirroring Binance Perp volumes almost exactly" and that the data needed to rule out wash trading was not available. The episode shows DeFiLlama will pull suspect data, and also that self-reported volume can reach the site before it is caught.

LlamaSwap carries normal swap risk. You sign real transactions, through third-party routers, in a product still marked beta. LlamaSwap's own page warns you to check that you are on swap.defillama.com, because copycat sites exist.

DeFiLlama has no Solana programs of its own listed on its Solana Compass profile, so there is no program upgrade authority to assess.

DeFiLlama alternatives: Dune and Token Terminal

The right alternative depends on what DeFiLlama cannot do for you.

Dune is the one to look at when you want to ask your own questions. Dune offers "normalized blockchain datasets" that you dig through yourself. DeFiLlama hands you finished numbers. Dune takes more skill and time, and DeFiLlama is faster when a standard figure is all you need.

Token Terminal also covers how much money apps make, and presents it as financial statements. DeFiLlama covers the same ground with its fees, revenue and earnings pages, and any app can add itself by sending in an adapter.

For Solana validator and staking data, Solana Compass, the site you are reading, publishes figures for each validator. DeFiLlama's dashboards stop at the app level. We have an obvious interest in that comparison.

How DeFiLlama makes money without a token

DeFiLlama is "mainly funded by kickbacks from aggregators used on LlamaSwap and subscriptions", according to its FAQ. Earlier it ran on the founders' own money, donations and grants. Its documentation describes no paid listings: a protocol gets listed by submitting an adapter.

DeFiLlama has no token, and one was the cause of its only public crisis. On 19 March 2023, 0xngmi said the site was "undergoing a hostile takeover" over a plan to launch a LLAMA token without the team's support, and the team forked the site to llama.fi, Cointelegraph reported. Within two days the team apologised for "poor communication and a misunderstanding" and said no LLAMA token was in the pipeline. Any token using the DeFiLlama name is not from the project.

DeFiLlama's founders, team and history

DeFiLlama launched in October 2020. Its public face is 0xngmi, a pseudonymous developer who still leads the project. Cointelegraph's 2023 coverage named Charlie Watkins and Ben Hauser as co-founders. The team is largely pseudonymous, which is common in DeFi but means you are trusting open code and a public track record more than named individuals.

DeFiLlama is also a sister company of DL News, the crypto news outlet, as DL News states in its own reporting. A separate research arm publishes under the DefiLlama Research name.

How to get listed on DeFiLlama

To list a protocol, you write an adapter and open a pull request. The listing guide gives the steps: fork the DefiLlama-Adapters repository on GitHub, add a folder for your project, write the script that returns your TVL, and submit it with a short explanation. After the pull request is approved, the listing takes about 24 hours to appear on the site. Other metrics have their own adapter repositories, and the same process applies.