Overview
DefiLlama Cardano is a free data page that shows how much money people have deposited into decentralized finance (DeFi) apps on the network, meaning apps for trading, lending and borrowing without a bank. Alongside that headline figure it tracks stablecoin supply, exchange volume and fees, and it ranks the tracked apps side by side1. It suits holders who want a quick read on activity as well as analysts comparing apps.
The page is the Cardano view of DefiLlama, an analytics site that follows DeFi across many blockchains, publishes its tracking code on GitHub and is part of Llama Corp2. DefiLlama began tracking Cardano at the start of 20223. Its main number is total value locked (TVL), the dollar value of funds sitting in DeFi apps, and Cardano's TVL is the sum of each tracked app's figure4. DefiLlama Cardano is one of several metric tracking sites that follow the network.
Key Features
- Key network numbers on one screen. A single panel shows Cardano's TVL, the market value of stablecoins (tokens pegged to a currency such as the dollar), chain and app fees, exchange volume, the number of addresses active in the past 24 hours, transactions and ADA price data1.
- Charts you can take with you. The TVL chart switches between US dollars and ADA, adds other metrics, downloads as a CSV spreadsheet file or PNG image, and can be embedded on another website1.
- A sortable league table of apps. The rankings table lists each tracked Cardano app with its category, TVL, fees and revenue, and readers can choose columns, filter by TVL range and export the table1.
- DeFi numbers kept apart from staking. DefiLlama never adds ADA that holders delegate to stake pools, so the far larger amount of staked ADA does not drown out DeFi deposits in the Cardano chart5.
- Your choice of what counts. Toggles let readers include or leave out extra categories, such as an app's own staked token, borrowed funds and tokens not yet in circulation6.
What to Expect
Casual visitors to DefiLlama Cardano get a quick snapshot: a headline TVL figure, a chart, and links to dedicated DefiLlama pages for Cardano decentralized exchanges, fees and stablecoins1. A built-in assistant called LlamaAI offers ready-made questions about the network's numbers, and a watchlist button saves the chain for later1.
Researchers and developers can check how each number is built. According to DefiLlama, each listed app has its own adapter, a small program with public code that measures its deposits, and most adapters use on-chain data5. Tokens are priced mostly with data from CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency price data site, and funds held in bridges between blockchains are not credited to any chain7. The Cardano adapters share helper code that reads address balances through Blockfrost, a Cardano data service8.
Cardano's TVL history, stablecoin supply, exchange volume and fees are also available through DefiLlama's free API, a connection that other software can query without an access key, with a paid plan for extra data9. Cardano builders can add their own app by writing an adapter and submitting it to the public adapters repository on GitHub. After the change is merged, DefiLlama says the listing appears on the site within about 24 hours10.
