Ethereum's DeFi dominance slips to 54% as rivals chip away at its TVL lead

Ethereum's share of total value locked across DeFi has dropped from 63.5% to 54% so far this year, a near ten-percentage-point erosion that marks one of the sharpest sustained share losses the network has seen since multi-chain liquidity became mainstream. The chain still commands $45.4 billion in locked value — a figure that dwarfs any single competitor — but the direction of travel is unmistakable.

The slide reflects a broader structural shift: cheaper execution on Solana, Arbitrum, Base, and a growing roster of app-specific chains has pulled yield-seekers and protocol deployments away from Ethereum mainnet. When liquidity migrates, it tends to be sticky — protocols that launch on a new chain rarely pull back, and users who follow the yield rarely return unprompted.

For Ethereum bulls, the $45.4B anchor remains a formidable moat. But a dominance figure that has shed nearly ten…