Curriculum·S205 On-Chain and Fundamental Data·about 30 min
The data stack
By the end of this lesson you can
- →Trace a number from a dashboard back through the layers that produced it
- →Explain why every published metric embeds methodology decisions you did not make
- →Identify which layer a discrepancy between two sources comes from
- →State the provenance of any figure you use, at the level of source and method
Sophomore · enrolled learners
This lesson opens with The billion dollars that moved because a definition changed.
- What happened
- Total value locked is the headline metric of decentralized finance and is computed by aggregators from the assets held in protocol contracts. Its central methodological problem is double counting: capital deposited in one protocol frequently reappears as a receipt token deposited in another, so the same underlying asset can be counted in the totals of several protocols at once. DefiLlama's published methodology excludes double counting within a single protocol, and cross-protocol double counting through liquid staking and restaking derivatives remains a recognized concern, with the platform providing a toggle that lets a user include or exclude such positions. When the platform stopped double counting tokens in 2022, the reported totals for some blockchains fell by over a billion dollars.
- The decision point
- Not a single dollar moved. Nothing was deposited or withdrawn, no protocol changed, and no user did anything. A definition changed at one layer of the data stack and a headline number that thousands of analyses had been built on dropped by ten figures. Every number you read arrives through layers that made decisions, and the decisions are not printed next to the number.
What you will be able to answer
- →Name the five layers of the data stack.
- →What is the double counting problem in TVL?
- →When two sources disagree, what do you do first?
- →What does stating provenance mean?
Orientation and Year One are open: anyone can read them without an account. From Year Two onward the lessons are for enrolled learners, because progress through the later years only means anything if it is tracked against a record.
It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Sources and review
- https://docs.llama.fi/
- https://docs.llama.fi/faqs/frequently-asked-questions
- https://www.dlnews.com/articles/llama-u/how-to-track-total-value-locked-on-defillama/
- https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2019-01/srnysearca201901-5574233-185408.pdf
Confidence medium·Volatility high·Reviewed 2026-08-06·Owner unassigned
Contested
Aggregator methodologies change and the specific handling of double counting differs between platforms and over time. The durable point is that inclusion rules are decisions made above the chain; do not present any platform's current methodology as fixed, and re-check at review.
Whether cross-protocol double counting should be excluded at all is a genuine methodological disagreement, since a restaked asset arguably does secure two systems. This lesson does not adjudicate; it establishes that the decision exists and is not visible in the output.