Stacks Led Bitcoin-Linked Networks With $88.9 Million Locked in Q3

Stacks (STX) ended the third quarter of 2026 with $88.9 million in DeFi total value locked, leading all Bitcoin-linked networks. The figure put Stacks ahead of Rootstock at $83.2 million and Mezo at $77.3 million.

Apps on Stacks generated $448,000 in user fees during the quarter, compared with $208,000 on Hemi and $181,000 on Merlin. Weekly trading volume on Stacks decentralized exchanges reached a peak of $16.7 million in late September.

Bitcoin Staking and PoX-5

Bitcoin Staking went live on Stacks mainnet in July 2026 through the PoX-5 hard fork. The upgrade introduced miner-funded yields distributed through set bonding periods. Roughly 735 BTC was staked during the first two post-launch bonding periods.

Staking of Stacks tokens reached 493 million STX following the upgrade. In early September, StackingDAO introduced stBTC, a token representing staked Bitcoin that can be transferred and used elsewhere. This gave the ecosystem a liquid-staking option alongside its Bitcoin staking product. Traders can follow the Stacks (STX) coin page for real-time market data.

Lending Dominates Stacks DeFi

At the end of Q3, lending accounted for $81.9 million, or 92.1 percent of Stacks' DeFi TVL. Zest Protocol held the largest share of locked value, leaving the quarter-end total concentrated in lending and one protocol.

The concentration in lending mirrors a broader trend across Bitcoin-linked finance. Stacks competes with Rootstock, Mezo, Hemi, and Merlin for activity in this sector. Weekly DEX volume peaked at $16.7 million in late September, showing active trading alongside the lending growth. The Stacks price chart tracks STX market performance through the same period.

Bitcoin-Linked DeFi Landscape

Stacks operates its own consensus mechanism while anchoring to Bitcoin. Bitcoin's base layer has a narrower role than applications for lending or token swaps. The network's PoX-5 upgrade and Bitcoin Staking product have helped it capture the top spot among Bitcoin-adjacent DeFi chains.

By early November 2026, a chain-level measure for Stacks was about $57 million, while a broader ecosystem measure including liquid staking was about $123 million. Those figures describe different scopes from each other and from the $88.9 million quarter-end DeFi TVL. The broader layer-1 blockchains market continues to evolve as more networks build Bitcoin-anchored DeFi infrastructure.