DeFi terms explained simply
These terms come up again and again in the Finder, Navigator, Explorer and Report — here they are, collected in one place. There, a tooltip (hover, keyboard, or tap) shows the same explanation right next to the relevant field. For the bigger picture: What is DeFi?
30-day average APY
The average of the daily APY values DeFiLlama reported over the last 30 days. It puts the current snapshot in context but says nothing about future yield.
Access and KYC
Who may deposit: open (only a wallet needed), after an identity check (KYC, for example through an exchange account) or only for qualified investors with proof.
APY
Annual yield including compound interest, extrapolated from the current rate — not a guaranteed future return.
APY change
The change in APY since the stated point in time, given in percentage points (pp) rather than as a percentage change: from 4% to 6% is +2 pp.
Asset class
The kind of market the yield comes from — lending, liquidity pool, staking, vault or tokenized RWA, for example. It determines which metrics are meaningful in the first place.
Base APY
The portion of the APY from the pool's core mechanism (e.g. interest, trading fees) — excluding additional reward tokens.
Blockchain
A public, decentralized database where transactions and balances are recorded transparently for everyone — without a central authority controlling it.
Borrow APY
The interest rate borrowers pay on funds they've taken out — excluding any borrow-side reward incentives, which can lower the actual net cost.
Borrowed
The capital borrowers have currently taken out of this market. Together with the supply it gives the utilization.
Capacity
Whether a product still accepts deposits and how much room is left below its cap. Curated vaults and credit pools often have such caps.
Chain
The blockchain this pool runs on (e.g. Ethereum, Arbitrum) — different chains have different security and cost profiles.
Counterparty risk (not assessed)
The risk that the entity holding or managing the underlying real-world asset (e.g. a bank, a fund or a property manager) fails to meet its obligations — independent of blockchain or smart-contract security. This platform does not assess it: doing so would need information the data source used here does not provide.
Curator
Who decides, in a vault, which markets the deposited capital flows into, and is responsible for that selection. The curator's decisions shape the vault's yield and risk.
Data history
The number of days DeFiLlama holds historical data for this market. A short history makes averages and volatility measures less meaningful.
Data status
How recent and how complete the most recently fetched data set is — from “Live” (just fetched) through “Delayed” and “Partially available” to “Unavailable”. The status describes the data delivery, not the quality of the market.
DeFi
Short for “Decentralized Finance” — financial services like saving, lending, or trading that run directly on blockchain software, without a bank or other central intermediary.
Depeg
When a stablecoin's market price noticeably deviates from its reference (usually $1). A stablecoin's peg rests on reserves, over-collateralization, or an algorithmic mechanism — a depeg shows that mechanism is under stress.
Depositors
Number of addresses holding a position in a product — a hint about distribution, not a statement about safety. One person can use several addresses.
DEX (Decentralized Exchange)
A trading platform like Uniswap where tokens are swapped without a central exchange acting as an intermediary. Most, including Uniswap, are automated market makers (AMMs): you trade against a liquidity pool held by a smart contract, not directly with another person.
Exposure
Whether the position is exposed to the price risk of a single asset or several at once — multiple assets also add impermanent-loss risk.
Fee APY
The part of a liquidity pool's yield that comes from the trading fees on swaps routed through it — the base APY for this kind of pool.
Fees
What a provider keeps from the yield or from the capital, for example a performance or management fee. Whether a displayed yield is reported before or after fees depends on the source.
Fixed rate to maturity
A fixed return up to a set date. Exiting earlier is usually only possible via the secondary market and often only at a discount.
Flag points
The sum of the triggered data flags across seven publicly measurable fields (TVL, chain, asset and IL exposure, reward share, protocol list, outlier flag, data completeness). An internal heuristic — not an audit, not a rating and not a ranking.
Impermanent Loss
A possible loss in value compared to simply holding, when the prices of the pool's assets shift relative to each other — mainly affects pools with multiple, non-stable assets.
Lending & Borrowing
Lending and borrowing assets via protocols like Aave or Compound: deposits earn interest, loans require collateral.
Liquid Staking
A token representing staked ETH or SOL (e.g. stETH, weETH, JitoSOL) — stays tradeable, but carries additional protocol and slashing risk compared to the native coin.
Liquidity Pool
A smart contract where users deposit assets so others can trade with them or borrow them — this is where the yield shown here comes from.
Market capitalization
The total value of all circulating units of this asset. Shown here instead of a TVL when the asset has no yield pool of its own — the two figures are not comparable.
Max LTV
Loan-to-Value — the maximum share of the collateral's value that may be borrowed against in this market. The ratio at which a position becomes liquidatable is set by the separate liquidation threshold.
Median APY
The middle APY of this selection: half the markets sit above it, half below. Unlike an average, individual extreme values barely move it.
Minimum deposit
The smallest deposit a provider accepts — often high for tokenized funds and credit pools.
Network fees
Cost per transaction on a chain (gas). For small amounts they can eat up a noticeable share of the annual return — especially on Ethereum.
Non-Custodial
Users retain control of their own assets, e.g. via their own wallet, instead of entrusting them to a bank or exchange — with correspondingly more personal responsibility.
Pool ID
A market's unique identifier at DeFiLlama. With it, the same market can be found again in the Explorer, on DeFiLlama and in its API.
Proof of Reserve (PoR)
Evidence that the reserves backing a token (e.g. cash deposits or bonds for RWAs) actually exist — implemented, depending on the provider, as an ongoing on-chain oracle or as a periodic third-party attestation. Not a substitute for a full audit, and only as reliable as the source providing the data; not every tokenized asset has this kind of proof.
Protocol
The application or smart contract system that operates this pool (e.g. Aave, Uniswap).
Reward APY
The portion of the APY from the protocol's additional reward tokens — often less stable than the base APY.
RWA (Real-World Asset)
A real-world asset (e.g. US Treasuries, real estate) represented as a token on a blockchain. Unlike crypto-native assets, its value depends on a structure managed off-chain, usually a centralized one — counterparty, custody and legal standing are among the areas this platform explicitly does not assess.
RWA segment
The sub-group within tokenized real-world assets — government bonds, private credit or commodities, for example. Only populated for the tokenized RWA class.
Smart Contract
Self-executing code on a blockchain that automatically carries out financial logic, e.g. interest payments — without anyone having to manually enforce the rules.
Smart Contract Risk
The risk that a protocol's underlying code contains bugs or security vulnerabilities that could lead to a loss of deposited funds. It replaces a bank's or intermediary's classic default risk with a technical one — an audit reduces it but does not eliminate it completely.
Stablecoin
A crypto asset pegged to a stable reference (usually USD), e.g. USDC.
Statistical outliers
Markets whose reported APY sits so far outside the usual range that a data error or a short-lived incentive program is more likely than a durable yield. The filter hides them; it does not judge them.
Supply APY
The rate depositors earn on capital they supply to a lending market — the counterpart to the borrow APY that borrowers pay.
Tokenized private credit
Loans to companies or trading firms, represented as tokens. The capital is often locked for longer periods, and repayment depends on the borrower.
Total supplied
The total capital supplied to a lending market — lent out and not lent out together.
Total TVL
The sum of the TVL of every market in this selection. Markets for which DeFiLlama reports no TVL are left out, and amounts from different protocols can represent the same underlying asset more than once.
Trading vault
A vault whose capital serves as counterparty for trading or market making. The yield follows the trading result and can turn negative in some market phases.
Trading volume
The value of the swaps routed through this pool in the stated period. It is what generates the trading fees that feed a liquidity pool's fee APY.
TVL
Total Value Locked — the total value of the assets in the market being shown, passed through unchanged from DeFiLlama. A rough signal of size and liquidity, not a statement about safety. For lending markets, DeFiLlama reports either the total supply or the supply minus borrows, depending on the protocol, so the TVL does not say how much is actually withdrawable. Where supply and borrows are available, the withdrawable liquidity is shown separately.
TVL change
The percentage change in TVL since the stated point in time. DeFiLlama reports it only for assets without a yield pool of their own.
TVL-weighted APY
The average APY across every market in this selection, weighted by their TVL. Large markets therefore count for more than small ones, unlike in an unweighted mean.
Utilization
The share of supplied capital that is currently lent out. High utilization usually raises interest rates but leaves less liquidity available for immediate withdrawal.
Volatility (Sigma)
The standard deviation of this pool's historical APY — a measure of how much the yield fluctuates over time, not of default risk itself. The data source does not state the observation window used.
Wallet
A digital wallet for managing your own crypto assets and interacting with DeFi protocols. SKN3X.COM itself does not connect to a wallet or execute any transactions.
Withdrawable liquidity
Withdrawable liquidity: a lending market's supply minus the borrowed part, computed from those two figures. Not the same number as the TVL, which comes through unchanged from DeFiLlama — both are shown side by side so the difference is visible. High utilization leaves little of it and can delay withdrawals.
Withdrawal period
How long it takes until deposited capital is available again: immediately, after an unlock or waiting period, or only at maturity. When liquidity is tight it can take longer. The market data on this site contains no withdrawal periods.