Recently, I often see people discussing TVL in the DeFi community, and it turns out many are still confused about the concept. So I’ll try to explain briefly.

So TVL is short for Total Value Locked, which basically means the total value of crypto assets that are currently locked in a DeFi protocol. This is not just a random number, but a fairly important metric to monitor if you're serious about DeFi.

Why does it matter? First, TVL is an indicator of community trust in a particular protocol. The higher the value, the more people trust and are willing to deposit their assets there. Second, it also shows the ecosystem's growth in real-time. If TVL increases, it means the protocol is developing. Third, TVL reflects the available liquidity, so you can see how smooth transactions are on that protocol.

If you want to track TVL yourself, there are some tools that are quite reliable. DefiLlama and DeBank are two of the most popular trackers I often use for monitoring. They usually update in real-time, so you can see the movement of TVL across different protocols in detail.

Honestly, TVL is one of the metrics that shouldn’t be ignored if you want to understand the health of the DeFi ecosystem. So from now on, check the TVL trend periodically. Who knows, you might find some interesting opportunities here.