Gone are the days in DeFi when factors like gas prices or AMM design determined transaction execution.
Taking a few pages from Wall Street, order flow visibility, routing, and settlement now define fairness and access onchain.
But did DeFi improve on its predecessors?
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By 2025, Ethereum operated a dual-track execution system. Public mempools still dominated transaction count, but private routing captured most economically sensitive flow.
Large swaps, liquidations, and arbitrage increasingly bypassed the public mempool, entering through private relays, RFQs, and solver-mediated pipelines.
A heavy structural shift, MEV-Boost intermediated roughly 90–95% of Ethereum block production throughout the year, confirming that permissioned builder pipelines are now the dominant inclusion path.
In parallel, private mempool usage rose to ~35–45% of daily transactions, up from low-teens levels in early 2024.
Public mempools remain the default for retail and permissionless submissions, but private systems dominate MEV-dense and priority order flow. Access to routing infrastructure now matters more than gas bidding when competing for high-value execution, reshaping who can participate in the most profitable segments of blockspace.
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Elsewhere, solver-mediated execution matured into an industrial clearing layer on Ethereum.
On CoWSwap V3, a small group of solvers consistently cleared the majority of trades and batches, with leadership stabilising in the second half of the year as long-tail participation declined.
RFQ liquidity became even more centralised. Two market makers filled nearly 90% of RFQ flow, with price discovery concentrated in USDC, ETH, USDT, and BTC.
Public AMMs continued to serve retail and long-tail assets, but most economically significant flow moved into private, solver-routed channels. Execution quality improved, while control over pricing and flow narrowed to a small institutional layer.
█████▒▒▒▒▒
The second half of 2025 resurrected one of DeFi's founding principles: privacy.
As execution and routing moved into private channels, demand for selective disclosure increased.
Zcash regained mindshare with a blend of retail speculation and heightened awareness surrounding compliance-compatible privacy. While total transactions declined, shielded usage more than doubled, reaching ~19% of activity.
Usage consolidated almost entirely into the Orchard shielded pool, which surpassed 4.1m ZEC in shielded supply. View keys preserved auditability, allowing Zcash to remain supported by exchanges and custodians.
███████▒▒▒
An important takeaway from 2025: MEV, private routing, and dark execution are now framed as market-integrity and conflicts-of-interest issues by regulators.
🇪🇺 EU → ESMA analysis explicitly treated MEV as a value transfer from users to intermediaries, often without user awareness and drawing parallels to illegal front-running in TradFi.
🇺🇸 USA → Still no crypto-specific best-execution standard, but routing, transaction ordering, and MEV-related conduct are being examined through enforcement actions and supervisory reviews.
🇬🇧 UK → The FCA’s 2025 consultations focused on authorisation, custody, market abuse, and systems-and-controls obligations, stopping short of any best-execution rules.
██████████
The challenge ahead is balance.
Unchecked private execution risks recreating markets where retail never sees the best price. Blindly copying traditional market structure risks importing the same opacity and gatekeeping DeFi set out to escape.
Where that line is drawn will determine whether onchain markets remain open systems or dissipate into smoke-and-mirrors-style closed execution clubs.
This is the State of DeFi.
Taking a few pages from Wall Street, order flow visibility, routing, and settlement now define fairness and access onchain.
But did DeFi improve on its predecessors?
█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
By 2025, Ethereum operated a dual-track execution system. Public mempools still dominated transaction count, but private routing captured most economically sensitive flow.
Large swaps, liquidations, and arbitrage increasingly bypassed the public mempool, entering through private relays, RFQs, and solver-mediated pipelines.
A heavy structural shift, MEV-Boost intermediated roughly 90–95% of Ethereum block production throughout the year, confirming that permissioned builder pipelines are now the dominant inclusion path.
In parallel, private mempool usage rose to ~35–45% of daily transactions, up from low-teens levels in early 2024.
Public mempools remain the default for retail and permissionless submissions, but private systems dominate MEV-dense and priority order flow. Access to routing infrastructure now matters more than gas bidding when competing for high-value execution, reshaping who can participate in the most profitable segments of blockspace.
███▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
Elsewhere, solver-mediated execution matured into an industrial clearing layer on Ethereum.
On CoWSwap V3, a small group of solvers consistently cleared the majority of trades and batches, with leadership stabilising in the second half of the year as long-tail participation declined.
RFQ liquidity became even more centralised. Two market makers filled nearly 90% of RFQ flow, with price discovery concentrated in USDC, ETH, USDT, and BTC.
Public AMMs continued to serve retail and long-tail assets, but most economically significant flow moved into private, solver-routed channels. Execution quality improved, while control over pricing and flow narrowed to a small institutional layer.
█████▒▒▒▒▒
The second half of 2025 resurrected one of DeFi's founding principles: privacy.
As execution and routing moved into private channels, demand for selective disclosure increased.
Zcash regained mindshare with a blend of retail speculation and heightened awareness surrounding compliance-compatible privacy. While total transactions declined, shielded usage more than doubled, reaching ~19% of activity.
Usage consolidated almost entirely into the Orchard shielded pool, which surpassed 4.1m ZEC in shielded supply. View keys preserved auditability, allowing Zcash to remain supported by exchanges and custodians.
███████▒▒▒
An important takeaway from 2025: MEV, private routing, and dark execution are now framed as market-integrity and conflicts-of-interest issues by regulators.
🇪🇺 EU → ESMA analysis explicitly treated MEV as a value transfer from users to intermediaries, often without user awareness and drawing parallels to illegal front-running in TradFi.
🇺🇸 USA → Still no crypto-specific best-execution standard, but routing, transaction ordering, and MEV-related conduct are being examined through enforcement actions and supervisory reviews.
🇬🇧 UK → The FCA’s 2025 consultations focused on authorisation, custody, market abuse, and systems-and-controls obligations, stopping short of any best-execution rules.
██████████
The challenge ahead is balance.
Unchecked private execution risks recreating markets where retail never sees the best price. Blindly copying traditional market structure risks importing the same opacity and gatekeeping DeFi set out to escape.
Where that line is drawn will determine whether onchain markets remain open systems or dissipate into smoke-and-mirrors-style closed execution clubs.
This is the State of DeFi.
From this week’s The Decentralised: What DeFi protocols expect in 2026
As centralised exchanges lose ground and US regulators take a lighter approach, many DeFi teams are moving away from strict decentralisation ideals. The lines between DAOs, labs, and foundations are becoming less distinct, as protocols prioritise execution, sustainability, and product delivery.
That approach is reflected in upcoming upgrades. Aave v4 is expected early this year, with debate over how it should coexist with v3. Lido is preparing v3 to expand beyond liquid staking, Sky is exploring AI agents for DAO operations, and Ethereum and Solana are preparing major network upgrades.
More from this week's top stories:
→ Lighter Finance tokens rebound as the protocol starts buybacks.
→ Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has effectively solved the blockchain trilemma.
→ Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap emphasises pushing back against centralised influence by strengthening governance and onchain sovereignty.
From the land of DAOs:
→ A Lido DAO member is calling for a detailed breakdown of 2025 expenses.
→ BNB Chain is proposing parameter updates ahead of the Fermi hard fork.
→ Spark votes to increase Spark Savings USDC deposit cap.
[Sponsored] The Katana Flywheel: Rethinking Incentives and Liquidity for Sustainability
📰 Get The Decentralised delivered to your inbox every week.
As centralised exchanges lose ground and US regulators take a lighter approach, many DeFi teams are moving away from strict decentralisation ideals. The lines between DAOs, labs, and foundations are becoming less distinct, as protocols prioritise execution, sustainability, and product delivery.
That approach is reflected in upcoming upgrades. Aave v4 is expected early this year, with debate over how it should coexist with v3. Lido is preparing v3 to expand beyond liquid staking, Sky is exploring AI agents for DAO operations, and Ethereum and Solana are preparing major network upgrades.
More from this week's top stories:
→ Lighter Finance tokens rebound as the protocol starts buybacks.
→ Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has effectively solved the blockchain trilemma.
→ Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap emphasises pushing back against centralised influence by strengthening governance and onchain sovereignty.
From the land of DAOs:
→ A Lido DAO member is calling for a detailed breakdown of 2025 expenses.
→ BNB Chain is proposing parameter updates ahead of the Fermi hard fork.
→ Spark votes to increase Spark Savings USDC deposit cap.
[Sponsored] The Katana Flywheel: Rethinking Incentives and Liquidity for Sustainability
📰 Get The Decentralised delivered to your inbox every week.
As Bitcoin DeFi matured in 2025, execution-first designs gained traction, with Hemi emerging as a leading BTC-aligned execution layer.
In our State of DeFi interview, Hemi discusses the programmable path they've built to support Bitcoin DeFi.
Read the full interview here.
In our State of DeFi interview, Hemi discusses the programmable path they've built to support Bitcoin DeFi.
Read the full interview here.
DL News
State of DeFi: An interview with Hemi
As part of the State of DeFi 2025 report, we examined the evolution of Bitcoin DeFi in 2025 and found a sector moving from experimentation toward more deliberate infrastructure choices. Real increases in deployed BTC drove growth while activity remains concentrated;…
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Which countries have successfully adopted crypto? Let's rank 'em with the Bybit World Crypto Adoption Index:
🥇 Singapore 🇸🇬
🥈 USA 🇺🇸
🥉 Lithuania 🇱🇹
4. Switzerland 🇨🇭
5. UAE 🇦🇪
6. Ireland 🇮🇪
7. Canada 🇨🇦
8. Netherlands 🇳🇱
9. Estonia 🇪🇪
10. Vietnam 🇻🇳
Who's been left behind?
69. Dominican Republic 🇩🇴
70. Trinidad & Tobago 🇹🇹
71. Senegal 🇸🇳
72. Zimbabwe 🇿🇼
73. Panama 🇵🇦
74. Qatar 🇶🇦
75. Iran 🇮🇷
76. Azerbijan 🇦🇿
77. Mongolia 🇲🇳
78. Rwanda 🇷🇼
79. Lebanon 🇱🇧
Don't fret, there's still time. DeFi will inevitably win.
"Who are you to decide?" you ask. Well, the truth is we're just a bunch of llamas. 🦙
But Bybit asked us for a little help figuring it out, and we happen to have some bright minds on staff who helped design the Crypto Adoption Index.
The index & report are much more than a list of countries.
It shows where adoption is driven by policy, where it grows out of necessity, and where stablecoins, P2P rails, or regulated platforms become part of everyday financial life.
These rankings may catch your eye, but the details of the report are what explain the world behind them.
Consider this a quick lesson in global crypto culture. Expand your worldview by reading the full Bybit World Crypto Rankings report.
🥇 Singapore 🇸🇬
🥈 USA 🇺🇸
🥉 Lithuania 🇱🇹
4. Switzerland 🇨🇭
5. UAE 🇦🇪
6. Ireland 🇮🇪
7. Canada 🇨🇦
8. Netherlands 🇳🇱
9. Estonia 🇪🇪
10. Vietnam 🇻🇳
Who's been left behind?
69. Dominican Republic 🇩🇴
70. Trinidad & Tobago 🇹🇹
71. Senegal 🇸🇳
72. Zimbabwe 🇿🇼
73. Panama 🇵🇦
74. Qatar 🇶🇦
75. Iran 🇮🇷
76. Azerbijan 🇦🇿
77. Mongolia 🇲🇳
78. Rwanda 🇷🇼
79. Lebanon 🇱🇧
Don't fret, there's still time. DeFi will inevitably win.
"Who are you to decide?" you ask. Well, the truth is we're just a bunch of llamas. 🦙
But Bybit asked us for a little help figuring it out, and we happen to have some bright minds on staff who helped design the Crypto Adoption Index.
The index & report are much more than a list of countries.
It shows where adoption is driven by policy, where it grows out of necessity, and where stablecoins, P2P rails, or regulated platforms become part of everyday financial life.
These rankings may catch your eye, but the details of the report are what explain the world behind them.
Consider this a quick lesson in global crypto culture. Expand your worldview by reading the full Bybit World Crypto Rankings report.
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Forwarded from DL News | News Feed
DL News
Why did Monero just hit an all-time high? ‘We’ve allowed increasingly dystopian systems to exist’
Monero surges to a record price of $596. Rival privacy token Zcash is down 18% in the past seven days. Privacy technology is a key focus for crypto industry giants.
Decentralised exchanges are coming for sports betting.
In a DL Research interview, PRED founder Amit Mahensaria explains why sportsbook models break at scale, how exchange-based betting changes incentives, and what onchain markets unlock next.
Full interview here.
In a DL Research interview, PRED founder Amit Mahensaria explains why sportsbook models break at scale, how exchange-based betting changes incentives, and what onchain markets unlock next.
Full interview here.
DL News
PRED Founder on Disrupting Sports Betting with Decentralised Exchanges
We recently spoke with Amit Mahensaria, Founder of PRED, about his transition from scaling edtech giants to building a decentralised sports trading exchange, and why he believes the traditional sportsbook model is broken.
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In 2025, DeFi's mask came off.
Airdrops proved to be less about decentralising.
DAOs shed their collective image as level playing fields
And beneath it all, through good and bad, fascinating narratives formed.
█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
Airdrops remained the dominant distribution mechanism in 2025, but onchain data make one thing crystal-clear: they were not instruments of economic decentralisation.
Across major campaigns, recipient counts routinely reached into the tens of thousands. Yet ownership consolidated immediately:
🪂 With Aster, the top 10% captured 95.5% of supply while the bottom half received just 0.2%
🪂 Kaito followed a similar pattern, with 93.1% held by the top decile and a median allocation barely above dust
🪂 Even flatter distributions like Monad still delivered ~70% of supply to the top 10%.
The mass-participation era of airdrops is over, and recipient count has become a poor proxy for economic decentralisation.
███▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
While 2024 represented a high-water mark for DAO proposal activity and experimental governance frameworks, 2025 marked a clear transition toward consolidation, professionalisation, and delegate-driven control.
Across major DAOs, proposal volume collapsed by 60–90% year over year while median voter counts fell almost everywhere. Yet the voting power deployed per proposal held steady or increased.
🔑 Decision-making migrated toward a small cohort of professional delegates, large liquidity providers, and protocol-aligned funds.
🔑 Effective influence per voter rose sharply, even as raw participation declined.
Day by day, governance continues to evolve (or devolve) away from Vitalik's DAO ideals.
█████▒▒▒▒▒
DAO treasuries in 2025 became both highly concentrated and structurally divided.
Among those large treasuries, two models clearly emerged:
1️⃣ Native-token–heavy treasuries
2️⃣ Diversified operating treasuries
Today, treasury composition mattered as much as size: the DAOs best positioned for 2026 are the ones that have already reduced reliance on native token price to fund operations.
███████▒▒▒
Economic design in DeFi changed meaningfully in 2025.
For the first time, protocol revenue and tokenholder outcomes began to converge—unevenly, and only in parts of the market, but decisively enough to mark a break from prior cycles.
The shift was highly category-dependent:
🥇 Chains routed nearly all revenue to validators and stakers
🥈 Derivatives and CDPs adopted explicit, high-distribution models
🥉 DEXs improved materially
🏅 Lending and liquid staking largely retained the zero-payout structure of earlier cycles
██████████
This is the State of DeFi: covering stablecoin safety, revenue distribution, trading infrastructure, credit and RWAs, the L1/L2 scene, privacy & execution, digital asset treasuries, and more.
Airdrops proved to be less about decentralising.
DAOs shed their collective image as level playing fields
And beneath it all, through good and bad, fascinating narratives formed.
█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
Airdrops remained the dominant distribution mechanism in 2025, but onchain data make one thing crystal-clear: they were not instruments of economic decentralisation.
Across major campaigns, recipient counts routinely reached into the tens of thousands. Yet ownership consolidated immediately:
🪂 With Aster, the top 10% captured 95.5% of supply while the bottom half received just 0.2%
🪂 Kaito followed a similar pattern, with 93.1% held by the top decile and a median allocation barely above dust
🪂 Even flatter distributions like Monad still delivered ~70% of supply to the top 10%.
The mass-participation era of airdrops is over, and recipient count has become a poor proxy for economic decentralisation.
███▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
While 2024 represented a high-water mark for DAO proposal activity and experimental governance frameworks, 2025 marked a clear transition toward consolidation, professionalisation, and delegate-driven control.
Across major DAOs, proposal volume collapsed by 60–90% year over year while median voter counts fell almost everywhere. Yet the voting power deployed per proposal held steady or increased.
🔑 Decision-making migrated toward a small cohort of professional delegates, large liquidity providers, and protocol-aligned funds.
🔑 Effective influence per voter rose sharply, even as raw participation declined.
Day by day, governance continues to evolve (or devolve) away from Vitalik's DAO ideals.
█████▒▒▒▒▒
DAO treasuries in 2025 became both highly concentrated and structurally divided.
Among those large treasuries, two models clearly emerged:
1️⃣ Native-token–heavy treasuries
2️⃣ Diversified operating treasuries
Today, treasury composition mattered as much as size: the DAOs best positioned for 2026 are the ones that have already reduced reliance on native token price to fund operations.
███████▒▒▒
Economic design in DeFi changed meaningfully in 2025.
For the first time, protocol revenue and tokenholder outcomes began to converge—unevenly, and only in parts of the market, but decisively enough to mark a break from prior cycles.
The shift was highly category-dependent:
🥇 Chains routed nearly all revenue to validators and stakers
🥈 Derivatives and CDPs adopted explicit, high-distribution models
🥉 DEXs improved materially
🏅 Lending and liquid staking largely retained the zero-payout structure of earlier cycles
██████████
This is the State of DeFi: covering stablecoin safety, revenue distribution, trading infrastructure, credit and RWAs, the L1/L2 scene, privacy & execution, digital asset treasuries, and more.
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Behind the stablecoin boom sits a quiet shift in treasury and payments infrastructure.
OpenPayd CCO Lux Thiagarajah examines where stablecoin treasuries fit into modern financial rails and how that changes the operating model for banks and fintechs in an interview with DL Research.
OpenPayd CCO Lux Thiagarajah examines where stablecoin treasuries fit into modern financial rails and how that changes the operating model for banks and fintechs in an interview with DL Research.
DL News
OpenPayd CCO on Building Universal Financial Infrastructure and the Stablecoin Treasury Revolution
We recently spoke with Lux Thiagarajah, CCO of OpenPayd, about the critical role of universal financial infrastructure in today’s global economy and how stablecoins are reshaping corporate treasury operations.
DL Research is looking for a crypto-curious, smart, organised junior to help us research companies, find decision-makers, and build our sales pipeline. You’ll grow into outreach and deal support over time.
-Great entry-level role
-Remote
-Clear growth path
-Fun team consisting entirely of llamas 🦙
DM @rooooooosa to apply!
-Great entry-level role
-Remote
-Clear growth path
-Fun team consisting entirely of llamas 🦙
DM @rooooooosa to apply!
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From this week’s The Decentralised: Inside Pump.fun 💊
Burwick Law has refiled a lawsuit accusing Pump.fun, Solana Labs, and related entities of running a rigged, unlicensed gambling operation, citing thousands of private messages between founders and engineers. The suit argues that Solana’s priority fee system allowed insiders and bots to consistently buy ahead of retail users, framing the platform as a casino where outcomes were effectively predetermined.
Some messages appear damaging, including admissions that most users lose money, and claims from anonymous influencers that paid promotions and early access were common. Still, the case hinges on selective disclosures and hearsay, with limited evidence that Pump.fun executives personally profited. For now, the lawsuit raises uncomfortable questions about fairness and guardrails in memecoin markets, even if its criminal claims remain unproven.
More from this week's top stories:
→ Ethereum staking bottleneck breaks as long-running exit queue clears
→ Why did Monero just hit an all-time high? ‘We’ve allowed increasingly dystopian systems to exist’
→ Polygon rises 13% as blockchain’s developer unveils new stablecoin framework
From the land of DAOs:
→ PROPOSAL: Optimism proposes token buyback program
→ VOTE: CoW DAO votes on renewing grants program
→ PROPOSAL: Vitalik Buterin proposes bandwidth-efficient mempool system
[Sponsored] See how crypto is taking shape around the world. Read the Bybit World Crypto Rankings for a data-led snapshot of where adoption is strongest.
📰 Get The Decentralised delivered to your inbox every week.
Burwick Law has refiled a lawsuit accusing Pump.fun, Solana Labs, and related entities of running a rigged, unlicensed gambling operation, citing thousands of private messages between founders and engineers. The suit argues that Solana’s priority fee system allowed insiders and bots to consistently buy ahead of retail users, framing the platform as a casino where outcomes were effectively predetermined.
Some messages appear damaging, including admissions that most users lose money, and claims from anonymous influencers that paid promotions and early access were common. Still, the case hinges on selective disclosures and hearsay, with limited evidence that Pump.fun executives personally profited. For now, the lawsuit raises uncomfortable questions about fairness and guardrails in memecoin markets, even if its criminal claims remain unproven.
More from this week's top stories:
→ Ethereum staking bottleneck breaks as long-running exit queue clears
→ Why did Monero just hit an all-time high? ‘We’ve allowed increasingly dystopian systems to exist’
→ Polygon rises 13% as blockchain’s developer unveils new stablecoin framework
From the land of DAOs:
→ PROPOSAL: Optimism proposes token buyback program
→ VOTE: CoW DAO votes on renewing grants program
→ PROPOSAL: Vitalik Buterin proposes bandwidth-efficient mempool system
[Sponsored] See how crypto is taking shape around the world. Read the Bybit World Crypto Rankings for a data-led snapshot of where adoption is strongest.
📰 Get The Decentralised delivered to your inbox every week.
DL News
Pump.fun exec says ‘most lose’ on memecoin platform, lawsuit alleges
A lawsuit against Pump.fun and Solana executives has been refiled. It claims that executives orchestrated a wide-ranging pump-and-dump scheme. But the lawsuit provides scant evidence for those claims. Private messages show a Pump.fun founder saying most investors…
What's trending today with DefiLlama's custom dashboards?
Let’s see what the Gauntlet dashboard tells us (with data):
→ TVL up 8% over 30d; 69% growth on Base since January 1, Ethereum TVL down 50% from November highs
→ Token mix: USDT nearly eliminated, removing ~$750m from November ATH ($50m today); USDC +38% over 14d
→ December fees were half of November’s; cumulative fees total $34m
→ Top vault: GTUSDCP (Morpho, Base Chain) at 4.26% APY with $400m TVL
A risk-curation powerhouse second only to Steakhouse ($1.8b TVL), Gauntlet now holds nearly a $1b lead over third-place Sentora. Its share of risk-curator fees continues to grow steadily, while peers have largely stagnated.
——————————
Nearly 700 custom dashboards have been created since DefiLlama launched the dashboard builder, and you can explore every one of them today for free.
Let’s see what the Gauntlet dashboard tells us (with data):
→ TVL up 8% over 30d; 69% growth on Base since January 1, Ethereum TVL down 50% from November highs
→ Token mix: USDT nearly eliminated, removing ~$750m from November ATH ($50m today); USDC +38% over 14d
→ December fees were half of November’s; cumulative fees total $34m
→ Top vault: GTUSDCP (Morpho, Base Chain) at 4.26% APY with $400m TVL
A risk-curation powerhouse second only to Steakhouse ($1.8b TVL), Gauntlet now holds nearly a $1b lead over third-place Sentora. Its share of risk-curator fees continues to grow steadily, while peers have largely stagnated.
——————————
Nearly 700 custom dashboards have been created since DefiLlama launched the dashboard builder, and you can explore every one of them today for free.
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