Defillama
Defillama connects DeFi research questions to distinct dashboards
Defillama separates deposited capital, trading activity and retained fees into dashboards suited to different research questions. Choose TVL for capital comparisons, volume for trading activity and revenue for the portion of fees the protocol retains. Yield, stablecoin and unlock views answer narrower questions. Each choice needs matching coverage and a reporting period appropriate to the decision.
What's inside
A useful research session ends with an answer whose limits are clear. Revisit a dashboard when its measurements can change that answer. Repeated refreshing adds little when the selected period or underlying data has not changed.
Choose the dashboard by the quantity your decision needs, then keep its coverage and reporting period consistent.
Dashboard selection by research question
The minimum useful dashboard contains the measure your question requires and the level of detail your comparison needs. Chain views suit comparisons across ecosystems; protocol views support questions about individual applications. Category views help establish a relevant comparison group. Decide which scope matters before interpreting a ranking, because a position among unrelated protocols says little about performance within a particular activity.
TVL, or total value locked, provides context about deposited assets. It does not answer every question about those assets. Research into trading activity needs volume, while research into retained fees needs revenue. Write down the intended comparison in ordinary language before collecting figures. Use that sentence to check whether the dashboard measures what you intend to compare.
When is a dashboard enough for the decision?
A dashboard is enough when the decision concerns the historical aggregate it measures and the relevant coverage is available. Comparing recorded activity fits that boundary. Estimating the cost of a specific transaction requires its amount, applicable fee rules and network conditions. Historical totals cannot supply those inputs. Likewise, a market-wide chart cannot establish the execution price available for an individual trade. Stop using aggregate analytics once the unresolved question requires a transaction quote, an account balance or a contract-specific condition. Those tasks need information at a different level of detail.
Trading activity within a consistent market type
DEX volume suits research into spot swaps, while perpetual volume describes the notional value of derivatives trades. Open interest answers a separate question about outstanding positions. Keep those distinctions intact when choosing a view. A larger notional trading total does not establish a larger amount of deposited capital, and outstanding positions do not measure how much trading occurred during a period.
Aggregator activity also needs its own comparison group because routed trades can appear in the underlying exchanges’ activity. Adding both views can count the same trade twice. For recurring activity reports, preserve the market type and reporting window. Revisit the comparison when another relevant period becomes available, rather than treating every movement in a partial period as a completed trend.
Which fee view answers a cost question?
The Fees view answers questions about aggregate protocol charges; Revenue answers questions about the portion retained after payments to suppliers. Neither figure quotes the cost of your next action.
For a spot exchange, swap charges contribute to fees even when liquidity providers receive part of them. Revenue excludes the portion of fees distributed to liquidity providers. The distinction matters when the research question concerns user costs. Comparing revenue alone can make a protocol with substantial supplier payouts appear to charge less, even though revenue allocation and the amount users pay describe different relationships.
Fee totals also reflect the amount and composition of activity during the selected period. Higher totals do not automatically mean higher charges for an otherwise identical transaction. Keep network transaction costs separate from application fees, and avoid treating protocol-wide revenue as the amount available to every token holder. These boundaries determine which dashboard belongs in a cost or earnings comparison.
A worked comparison of charges and retained fees
A comparison of total swap charges belongs in Fees. Consider a hypothetical spot exchange with $18,746 in swap fees and $4,686 in revenue. All amounts, the exchange and the reporting period in this example are hypothetical. Before comparing the views, establish that both figures cover the same exchange activity, chain scope and completed period. Assume the exchange has no other fee sources within that scope.
First, read the Fees view for that scope: users collectively paid $18,746 in swap charges. Next, read Revenue using the same comparison dimensions: the exchange retained $4,686 after supplier payouts. Subtracting revenue from fees gives $14,060 distributed to the supply side. The smaller revenue figure therefore answers an allocation question, while the larger fee figure answers the question about aggregate charges.
Record both figures with the exchange, chain scope and reporting period. It does not identify a cheaper future trade. A different trading amount or mix of applicable fee rates would change aggregate charges. Stop at the historical comparison unless the next decision supplies the inputs for a transaction-specific estimate.
Yield screening before deposit research
Yield comparisons need a pool-level view because the protocol name alone does not identify the deposit exposure. The Yields dashboard shows pools alongside their chains, TVL and annual percentage yield, or APY. Available historical views help distinguish a recent rate from a longer observation window. Match the deposit asset and pool type before comparing rates; otherwise the apparent alternatives may involve different exposures.
A yield shortlist is complete when each retained pool fits the intended exposure and its displayed return has a clear basis. A deposit decision still needs the pool’s withdrawal conditions and the mechanism producing its yield. Review the shortlist when rates, rewards or those conditions change. A previous comparison cannot establish the return a future deposit will earn, and a higher displayed APY does not resolve differences in withdrawal access.
Stablecoin and unlock views around relevant events
Stablecoin dashboards suit questions about supply distribution and peg behavior across tracked assets and chains. They help establish where stablecoin value sits without requiring a protocol-by-protocol inventory. Keep supply growth separate from trading activity: additional circulating value does not establish how much of it changes hands. A supply comparison can finish with the selected chain breakdown and observation date. A question about redemption access requires the particular asset’s redemption conditions.
Unlock calendars serve a different purpose: they organize scheduled token emissions by date. Use the event timing to decide when a supply review needs attention, rather than assigning an arbitrary daily routine. Record the relevant schedule and revisit it if the allocation or release timing changes. An upcoming event provides a reason to review exposure; it does not establish that recipients will sell or determine a future price.
When should research move to exports or an API?
Exports or an API become useful when repeated analysis requires preserving observations or applying the same calculation across many records. A dashboard remains simpler for an occasional visual comparison. An export can support a dated report, while an application programming interface supports programmatic retrieval. Check access requirements for the needed dataset before building around it; download and endpoint access can depend on the subscription. Automation also leaves someone responsible for missing records, changing definitions and failed requests. Choose it when repeatability justifies that maintenance, then decide who will review discrepancies before the next report uses the results.
Defillama: frequently asked questions
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What belongs in a saved dashboard screenshot?
- A useful screenshot preserves the metric name, selected scope, units and reporting period alongside the chart. Record the capture date separately when the image does not show it. Keep relevant filters visible, especially when optional inclusions change the total. A cropped ranking without those details can support a different interpretation from the original view. For a calculation you need to repeat, preserve the underlying observations as well.
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How should an empty metric affect a protocol shortlist?
- An empty metric leaves that part of the comparison unresolved; it does not establish a zero value. Keep the protocol separate from candidates with comparable measurements rather than silently ranking the blank last. If the missing measure is essential to the research question, the available dashboard cannot complete that comparison. If it is incidental, retain the candidate and state the narrower basis on which the shortlist rests.
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Why can annualized revenue give a misleading impression of persistence?
- Annualized revenue scales an observed period to a yearly equivalent without establishing that the same activity will continue. A short burst of fees can therefore produce a large annualized figure. Preserve the underlying observation window when using this measure, and distinguish it from revenue actually accumulated over a year. The annualized value answers a question about pace under an assumption, not the amount a protocol has already earned.
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Does a chain fee ranking include all application fees on that chain?
- A chain fee ranking measures fees for using the chain, while application fee views measure charges within applications. Treat those as separate research questions. High application activity does not make an application fee total interchangeable with network transaction fees. When a report compares ecosystem costs, identify which layer each figure covers before combining or contrasting them. Otherwise, the same heading can conceal materially different measurements.
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Which dashboard helps assess governance and economic rights together?
- The Token Rights view separates governance, economic and ownership rights for comparison. It fits research into what a token allows holders to control or receive. Revenue charts alone cannot establish those rights, and governance authority does not automatically imply an active distribution mechanism. Use the rights distinction when the question moves beyond protocol activity to the relationship between a token and the value the protocol generates.