Reviewed by Reviewed by Jibin Mathew George Updated 03:00 EDT September 30, 2026 Share Share Share Back to Top DeFi has had a tough time lately, but it looks like the crowd’s coming back. Could big banks dipping their toes in the category help it grow faster?
Here’s the good news. DeFi’s Total Value Locked (TVL) grew by 38% in Q3 2026 to $95 billion. Now, that may not seem like a big deal… not unless you see the recovery with full context though
TVL hit $156 billion in Q3 2025. It then fell for three quarters straight
By the time June 2026 rolled around, it was down to $69 billion
Remember, it wasn’t just one good month dragging the numbers up. TVL grew in July, August, and September; by 7%, 15% and 11%, respectively
Ethereum [ETH] still holds more than half of it all, at about $53.7 billion. However, Monad’s [MON] TVL shot up 183% in the quarter!
Additionally, while Robinhood Chain only went live in July, it’s already over $1 billion
It’s not just Robinhood Chain whose growth is indicative of stocks making their way on-chain. According to Token Terminal, there’s about $252 million worth of tokenized stocks deposited… across DeFi protocols!
Allow us to help you with some context: That number was close to zero until early 2025. It picked up slowly through the year, then took off over the last few months
Uniswap [UNI] is where most of it ended up, with $82.1 million across its v3 and v4 pools. Kamino Lend [KMNO] came next at $51.3 million, followed by Pendle [PENDLE] at $33.8 million
Here, it’s interesting that people aren’t just buying these tokens and leaving them in a wallet. They’re trading them, lending them out, and earning yield on them, same as they would with any other crypto!
TradFi behemoth Morgan Stanley has set up a Digital Asset Lab to test out stablecoins, tokenisation, and DeFi apps across its business
As it stands, the lab has worked on tokenisation, electronic trading, cybersecurity and machine learning. It’s run by the bank’s innovation team, overseen by its people across New York, Scotland and India
A lot of this is coming from clients. With one of the biggest wealth management businesses in the U.S, more of those clients are likely to want Bitcoin [BTC] and other digital assets
Earlier this year, it also started offering crypto trading on E*Trade
Samyukhtha L KM is a financial journalist and market analyst at AMBCrypto. She covers key market moves, blockchain adoption, and socially-driven crypto trends. She also enjoys providing fresh takes through commentaries on emerging narratives
