Compass Investments

– Ranking 25 clusters: Solana 6.66% , BNB 6.60% , Bitcoin 6.35% , Tron 6.17% .

the gap between the clusters: only 0.49 percentage points separate these four contenders.

5.44% pulls the cluster from below.

Ethereum’s share of the total DeFi TVL has dropped from 63.5% in early 2025 to about 54% as of May 7, 2026, a drop of 9.5 percentage points in 16 months. This statistic is causing headlines about Ethereum losing ground. However, the absolute value tells a different story.

Ethereum’s loss of 9.5 percentage points of DeFi TVL share in 16 months is not an indicator of weakness in absolute terms: its $45.4 billion TVL means it still holds almost as much blockchain funds as all five of its closest rivals combined. A market leader whose market share shrinks while its absolute value grows or stays the same doesn’t lose: it sees the market expand around it.

The distinction between relative share and absolute TVL is important because DeFi is not a zero-sum game. The cumulative TVL of all networks has increased markedly since the beginning of 2025. The decline in Ethereum’s share from 63.5% to 54% in a growing market means that other networks have attracted new capital that has come from more than just Ethereum: it has come from new entrants, new applications, and new user segments not previously involved in DeFi. The drop in share reflects the growth rate of the rest of the market, not how much Ethereum has lost.

Solana, BNB Smart Chain, Bitcoin and Tron are separated by just 0.49 percentage points for the four networks, indicating that the DeFi market has not yet settled on a second-place chain and the real competition is within that cluster, not between the cluster and Ethereum. Solana leads with 6.66% , BNB Smart Chain follows with 6.60% , Bitcoin holds 6.35% , and Tron closes the group with 6.17% . None of the networks have pulled ahead. All four are in a state of statistical parity.

The equal share of TVL across the four networks with different architectures indicates that DeFi capital has not explicitly favored any of them at this point.

Funds are being allocated among the available options rather than flocking to one successor to Ethereum positions.

A network that separates from this 6% cluster and reaches 10% or 12% will accomplish something the others have not: provide DeFi capital with a compelling reason to concentrate. That reason could be a breakthrough application, a regulatory advantage, a depth of liquidity that creates its own attraction, or a fee structure that makes it the most affordable option at scale. None of the current four cluster members have yet offered such a reason.

Bitcoin’s share of the 6.35% DeFi TVL is the most notable in terms of structure in the chart, as Bitcoin was not originally designed for DeFi, and every dollar locked into Bitcoin DeFi represents infrastructure that didn’t exist three years ago. Bitcoin has no native layer of smart contracts.

Its presence in DeFi is entirely based on wrapped tokens, layer 2 solutions, and a bridging infrastructure that channels Bitcoin’s value into a DeFi-compatible environment. The fact that this infrastructure has accumulated enough TVL for Bitcoin to rank fourth in the global DeFi TVL rankings, ahead of Tron, which has a dedicated DeFi ecosystem, speaks to both the scale of Bitcoin’s underlying asset and the maturity of this infrastructure.