Decentralized finance (DeFi) experienced a notable recovery in the third quarter of 2026, with Total Value Locked (TVL) increasing by 38% to reach $95 billion. This growth follows three consecutive quarters of declines that brought TVL down to $69 billion by June 2026, following a peak of $156 billion in Q3 2025.
The recovery was sustained across the quarter, with TVL growing by 7% in July, 15% in August, and 11% in September, according to data from CryptoRank. Ethereum continues to maintain the majority of the market share, holding approximately $53.7 billion of the total value. Meanwhile, Monad experienced a quarterly TVL increase of 183%, and the Robinhood Chain, which launched in July, surpassed $1 billion in TVL.
Tokenized stocks have also expanded within the sector, with approximately $252 million deposited across DeFi protocols. This figure represents a significant shift from early 2025, when the total was close to zero. Uniswap holds the largest share of these tokenized stock deposits with $82.1 million across its v3 and v4 pools, followed by Kamino Lend with $51.3 million and Pendle with $33.8 million. Users are actively trading, lending, and earning yield on these tokenized assets.
In traditional finance, Morgan Stanley established a Digital Asset Lab to evaluate stablecoins, tokenization, and DeFi applications across its operations. Managed by the bank's innovation team across New York, Scotland, and India, the lab has focused on tokenization, electronic trading, cybersecurity, and machine learning. Additionally, the firm began offering crypto trading on E*Trade earlier in the year.
