TON DeFi metrics: TVL, volume, active users (2026)

DeFi on TON is the youngest part of the ecosystem and the most interesting one for an analyst. Explosive growth in 2024, a local peak followed by a sideways grind in 2025-2026, and a structural shift toward stablecoin liquidity. This piece is a breakdown of which metrics matter, where to find them, and how to read them.

What TVL actually is

Total Value Locked — the dollar-denominated value of assets sitting in protocol smart contracts at a given moment. It is not cumulative volume and not revenue — just a snapshot of liquidity. A falling TVL doesn’t always mean capital outflow: more often it reflects a drop in the underlying asset’s price.

That matters especially for TON, because a meaningful share of TVL is denominated in Toncoin. When TON’s price drops, the dollar TVL drops automatically — even if no one has redeemed from the protocols.

TON TVL by the numbers

Per DefiLlama (chain/ton) and blog.ston.fi as of 2026:

TON’s share of global DeFi in 2026 is around 0.4-0.6%. For comparison: Ethereum 50-55%, Solana 7-9%, Base 4-6%. TON is far from the leaders, but the segment is growing faster than 12-month averages.

TVL by protocol

DefiLlama data (mid-2025 / early-2026):

• STON.fi — the largest DEX, TVL $130-150M, 35-45% of ecosystem TVL.
• DeDust — second DEX, TVL $50-80M, 15-25%.
• Tonstakers / Hipo / bemo — liquid staking — combined ~$250M in TON terms.
• EVAA / Storm Trade — lending and perpetuals, $20-50M combined.
• Other — small pools, synthetics, niche protocols.

Important caveat: liquid staking is sometimes counted separately from DEX TVL, sometimes together. When reading someone else’s analysis, always check the methodology. Without staking, TON’s TVL is lower than a clean DeFi-comparison would suggest.

DEX volumes

Daily swap volumes on TON in 2026 sit in the $15-40M range (source: DefiLlama, blog.ston.fi). The split:

A useful analyst metric is the Volume/TVL ratio. For mature AMMs it sits at 0.05-0.3 per day; TON falls in the same range, which signals healthy use of liquidity.

DeFi active users

The hardest metric, because TON DeFi is heavily linked to the Telegram audience. Baseline figures:

• Unique daily DEX traders — around 20,000-50,000 (depends on volatility and airdrop cycles).
• Unique LPs — a few thousand active per week.
• Liquid stakers — about 70,000+ via Tonstakers (source: 99bitcoins, updated).

For comparison, Uniswap’s daily unique active addresses sit at 200,000-400,000. TON trails on absolute numbers, but the average transaction size is materially smaller — this is retail traffic, not institutional.

Stablecoins — the main driver of 2024-2026

Since Tether’s launch of USDT-jetton in April 2024, stablecoin liquidity has been the key driver of TON DeFi. As of May 2026:

• USDT on TON — over $1B market cap (per aggregators).
• USDC — several hundred million, mostly via Circle integration.
• USDe (Ethena) — added in 2024 via LayerZero, volumes growing.

Liquid staking — a separate vertical

Liquid staking is a sizable slice of TON DeFi. The main players:

Combined liquid-pool stake is around 96M TON (source: tonstat.com, May 2026) — roughly 3.5% of circulating TON, close to where ETH was before Lido took off.

Lending and perpetuals

The weakest segments of TON DeFi in 2026:

• EVAA Protocol — main lending protocol, TVL ~$20-30M. The TON answer to Aave.
• Storm Trade — perp DEX, daily volume $5-15M (source: DefiLlama, blog.ston.fi).
• Aqua — synthetics, experimental segment.

Compared to Ethereum/Solana the gap is wide: TON lending is nowhere near Aave/Compound dominance, and perpetual DEXes are still catching up to GMX/dYdX in product maturity.

What matters for practical analytics

If you’re building a TON DeFi dashboard, I’d pick this first-tier metric set:

1. Ecosystem TVL (excluding staking) — clean DEX/lending TVL.
2. Liquid staking TVL — separate vertical.
3. 24h DEX volume — 7-day rolling average to smooth weekend dips.
4. Stablecoin market cap on TON — the main leading indicator.
5. Volume/TVL ratio — liquidity-utilisation health.
6. Unique daily DEX traders — base width.
7. TON price — without it, dollar TVL is misleading.

Common mistakes

• Comparing TON TVL with Ethereum head-on. Without adjusting for ecosystem age, protocol count and tooling maturity, the comparison is meaningless.
• Ignoring airdrop waves. Hamster Kombat and DOGS produced temporary volume spikes. They need to be subtracted when assessing trends.
• Counting stablecoin market cap as part of TVL. Circulating USDT-jetton is not TVL. TVL is what’s locked in protocols.
• Trusting a single source. DefiLlama sometimes diverges from blog.ston.fi and tonviewer.com by 10-20%. That’s normal — different methodologies.

Further reading

• How to read TON on-chain metrics — analyst guide — general methodology.
• TON price predictions 2026 — what analysts say.
• What is TON — complete guide — ecosystem context.

Sources

• DefiLlama — TON chain
• STON.fi blog — TON DeFi ecosystem in numbers
• tonstat.com — DEX and staking metrics.
• Token Terminal — TON
• 99bitcoins — Top TON projects 2026