Is Ethereum's Golden Goose Finally Cooked?
Yahoo Finance ·
For a cryptocurrency to gain in value and in prominence, there needs to be a compelling story about what it brings to the table. The narrative about Ethereum ( ETH +0.79% ) starts with its all-important decentralized finance (DeFi) segment, which is the largest on-chain lending and trading ecosystem in all of crypto by far, holding $36 billion in total value locked (TVL) in its apps. That golden goose has laid a lot of golden eggs for the chain, powering its massive bull run in 2021 and again in 2025. Now its trajectory is making holders uneasy, and it's sparking debate about whether Ethereum's main segment of value generation is in terminal decline, or if it's just taking a breather. The historical data look bad here. Ethereum's DeFi TVL hit $105 billion in November 2021 during the peak of the bull market , only to then crash and ultimately claw back to around $97 billion in TVL last August, right before the crypto market rolled over again and entered a bear phase. The problem is that the highs of TVL during the second cycle could not reclaim the highs of the first. That pattern often marks sectors that lost something more central than price momentum alone.
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