Key Takeaways
Ethereum’s DeFi TVL share fell from 63.5% to 53% between January 2025 and Might 2026.Defillama knowledge reveals Ethereum holds round $45B TVL, with Solana and BNB Chain gaining floor.Layer-2 chains like Base (5.31% TVL share) are reshaping Ethereum’s multichain footprint.
Rival Chains Shut the Hole
In absolute phrases, Ethereum nonetheless instructions the biggest DeFi stack on any single chain, with roughly $45.50 billion in TVL. However the share erosion tells a special story as competing blockchains have been absorbing capital at a quicker fee, diversifying DeFi’s liquidity footprint throughout a rising set of networks.
Based on Defillama’s chain rankings, Solana holds 6.76% of complete DeFi TVL, adopted intently by BNB Chain at 6.55%, Bitcoin at 6.16%, Tron at 6.01%, Base at 5.31%, and Hyperliquid at 1.82%. No single rival comes near Ethereum in absolute dimension, however the cumulative shift is important, with the mixed share of non-Ethereum chains now standing at roughly 47% of the worldwide DeFi market.
The drivers behind Ethereum’s share decline are well-established, i.e., decrease transaction prices on rival networks, the maturation of Ethereum-aligned layer-2 chains that pull TVL away from mainnet, and the expansion of DeFi-native ecosystems on Solana and BNB Chain specifically. Protocols like Jupiter, Raydium, and Kamino on Solana, and Pancakeswap on BNB Chain, have attracted billions in liquidity which may beforehand have defaulted to Ethereum.
The layer-2 issue deserves specific consideration, as a lot of what’s constructed for Ethereum, together with Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, settles to Ethereum however registers as a separate chain in DeFi analytics dashboards. If layer-2 TVL have been consolidated beneath the Ethereum umbrella, the community’s efficient share can be considerably increased.
The timing of this knowledge is notable on condition that Ethereum has confronted sustained narrative stress heading into mid-2026, with ongoing debates about its charge income trajectory, the tempo of its growth roadmap, and intensifying competitors from quicker, cheaper chains.
The broader multichain path additionally seems to be structural, with Jesse Pollak, creator of Base, capturing the prevailing sentiment in a publish on Might 9, stating, “deliver each monetary instrument onchain.” Whether or not that unfolds on the Ethereum mainnet, its layer-2 ecosystem, or throughout rival chains stays the defining query for DeFi’s subsequent section of progress.
