What is TVL (total value locked)?

Total value locked, or TVL, is the combined US-dollar value of all the assets deposited in a protocol, pool, or contract at a given moment. It is one of the most-cited numbers in DeFi because it offers a quick read on scale: how much capital users have actually committed, rather than how much hype a project has generated.

For traders, TVL is mostly a proxy for liquidity depth. A pool with high TVL can absorb larger swaps with less price impact and slippage, while a low-TVL pool moves sharply on modest orders. At the protocol level, rising TVL suggests growing trust and usage, though it can be inflated by incentives or by a single large depositor, so it is a starting point rather than a verdict.

Because TVL is just the on-chain balances valued at current prices, it is verifiable rather than self-reported. Sally displays value transparently at the level that matters for its tools on Base and BNB Smart Chain — per-pool depth that informs routing, and per-lock value so you can see how much liquidity is actually secured behind a token. Reading TVL pool by pool tells you far more about a specific trade than a single headline figure for a whole chain.