Follow the money after it enters DeFi. Across 8 emerging protocols, capital is taking on very different category That capital is being put to work across three areas: 1/ Yield-Bearing Dollars @tori_finance | ~$71.5M TVL Uses delta-neutral trading strategies to back trUSD and generate yield. @AxisFDN | ~$60.8M TVL Uses cross-venue arbitrage to generate returns for USDx holders. @noon_capital | ~$38.4M TVL Offers USN with yield generated through managed strategies. All three compete for capital seeking dollar-denominated returns, but the underlying strategies and risks differ. 2/ Lending & Capital Allocation @CurrentSUI | ~$58.1M TVL A lending market on Sui with roughly $78M in active loans. @infiniFi | ~$68.3M TVL Allocates capital across strategies with different liquidity profiles. TVL has risen from ~$45M at the end of September. @TradeNeutral | ~$22.4M TVL Routes capital into managed quantitative trading strategies. Capital efficiency depends on borrowing activity, strategy performance and how liquidity is managed. 3/ Risk Coverage & Tokenized Assets @Firelightfi | ~$68.7M TVL Uses staked FXRP to back DeFi insurance coverage. @KAIO_xyz | ~$39.6M TVL Brings investment products onchain through tokenization infrastructure. These are two different roles for capital: backing financial risk and providing exposure to investment assets. TVL measures the assets held or accounted for by a protocol, but it tells us much less about how those assets are used. The next layer of DeFi growth will be measured by how effectively capital is put to work, not simply how much is deposited.