Chain News Daily Official TheBitTimes.com

The Great Ethereum Puzzle: Staking Climbs, TVL Plateaus! Over the past year, Ethereum has continued to evolve as the dominant smart contract platform, but a curious divergence has emerged that’s puzzling analysts and builders alike: staking is hitting all-time highs, while Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi remains largely stagnant. This divergence highlights a deeper shift in user behavior, market dynamics, and how value is being captured in the Ethereum ecosystem. Staking Surge: Confidence or Complacency? Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) marked a major milestone. As of mid-2025, over 31 million ETH is staked—nearly 26% of the total supply. This sharp rise reflects increasing confidence in Ethereum’s security and longevity. Staking provides yield with relatively low risk, especially when compared to the often volatile and exploit-prone world of DeFi. Institutional investors and retail users alike are drawn to the predictable returns from staking. With liquid staking p...

This summer, crypto restaking protocols were rallying to new heights. Almost without exception, these leveraged plays on the native yield of proof-of-stake blockchains like Ethereum and Solana were attracting all-time high capital inflows. As of June 5, their total value locked (TVL) — a convenient albeit incomplete metric for judging the size of crypto protocols — had crested $21 billion. Protos has created a chart illustrating the breakdown of this TVL — click here to view . However, as of publication time, the assets in those protocols had declined by one-third to $14 billion. As investors return from summer vacation, university classes restart, and capital allocators reassess their portfolios with sober professionalism, the world has decided to take some risk off the table at the start of the third quarter. Declines in these USD values are influenced by general declines in ETH, SOL, and other restaking assets. Since June 5, the crypto market has shed 26% of i...

A layer-2 network launched by Pacman, creator of NFT marketplace Blur, continues to attract deposits while working on its mainnet . The total value locked (TVL) for decentralized L2 blockchain Blast surpassed $720 million, according to data from DefiLlama seen on Dec. 4. The climb to this level represents a $120 million increase in deposits since crypto.news last reported on Blast’s TVL.  Tieshun Roquerre, Blur’s co-founder, better known as Pacman, launched Blast in November 2023 as a native yield chain with an attached token airdrop. The project did not have a mainnet at inception. Instead, Pacman and his team released a multi-sig smart contract for early users to pre-fund their accounts while earning interest on their crypto deposits.  Less than a month after its launch, Blast is now the third largest holder of staked Ether (stETH), according to 21Shares researcher Tom Wan, citing Dune analytics data. The protocol’s multi-sig holds over $640 million in stETH as inflows poure...