DeFi protocols have lost nearly $45 billion in total value locked across all chains since January, amid a record wave of exploits and price collapses.
Cross-chain analysis conducted by CryptoRank showed that DeFi TVL has declined every month this year, falling from around $115 billion to around $70 billion as of late June.
Among the top ten TVL blockchains, only Tron and Hyperliquid recorded positive growth this year.
TRON gained about 5%, largely due to its dominant role in USDT transfers and stablecoin settlement. Hyperliquid stock rose nearly 7%, driven by its status as a leading venue for securities trading Trade perpetual futures on-chain.
Arbitrum took the biggest hit among the top 10 chains, falling 55.3% to $1.3 billion in TVL.
Ethereum has seen a 43% decline year to date but remains the largest DeFi chain, with $38.9 billion in TVL. Solana shares fell 40.5% to $4.93 billion.
DeFi TVL declines amid cryptocurrency market collapse
The outflows closely track broader cryptocurrency price corrections, which began after Bitcoin reached an all-time high above $122,000 in October 2025, with the total crypto market capitalization reaching $4.21 trillion.
At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency market is worth $2.15 trillion, which represents a roughly 50% decline from the October peak.
Bitcoin is down over 28% year to date. ETH is seeing a decline of 43%, followed by BNB and SOL at 33% and 43.5% respectively, which represent the second and third largest chains by TVL.
DeFi breaks through compound squeeze
CryptoRank too attributed The outflows lead to a record wave of gaps that have hit the market this year.
The cryptocurrency industry has recorded 121 hacks in 2026 through late June, with combined losses amounting to about $942 million. The second quarter alone saw 85 of these incidents and about $775 million in stolen funds.
In the second quarter, KelpDAO lost $293 million Through a vulnerability in the cross-chain LayerZero bridge, Drift Protocol suffered a $280 million hack, Cryptopolitan reported.
The KelpDAO attack also had an impact on Aave. The attackers used stolen, unbacked rsETH tokens as collateral for Aave to borrow against them, leaving the lending protocol with bad debts.
In the days following this exploit, Aave’s TVL dropped from $26.4 billion to $14.3 billion, a 46% drop, as depositors withdrew funds.
KelpDAO and Drift Protocol exploits alone account for three-quarters of total Q2 losses.
