Ink Layer 2 sees major TVL growth
Kraken’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, Ink, has crossed the $500 million mark in total value locked. This represents a significant acceleration for a network that spent much of its early life with less than $10 million in TVL after launching in December 2024.
According to DefiLlama data, Ink’s TVL stood at nearly $503 million as of Tuesday, January 6. That’s up about 3% over the past 24 hours, but more importantly, it shows a steep climb that began back in October 2025.
Tydro lending protocol drives growth
The timing of this surge is interesting. It follows Ink’s October 2025 launch of Tydro, a lending protocol built as a white-label deployment of the open-source Aave platform. Tydro has become the dominant force on the network, holding about $446.6 million in TVL alone—that’s up 34% just in the past month.
Looking at Tydro’s dashboard, the protocol’s total market size stands at $737.5 million currently. There’s $443.8 million available to borrow, with $293.7 million already borrowed. The gap between these numbers suggests there’s still room for growth, I think.
Network concentration and user activity
What’s striking is how concentrated the activity is on Ink. After Tydro, the next-largest protocol is Nado with roughly $40.8 million, followed by Velodrome at about $14 million. That’s a pretty steep drop-off, which might raise questions about ecosystem diversity.
But here’s something that gives me pause: while liquidity has surged, user activity has actually moved in the opposite direction. Daily active users peaked at just over 157,000 back in March 2025, then steadily declined through the rest of the year. Currently, Ink has about 49,000 daily active users according to Token Terminal.
Factors behind the growth
Several factors likely contributed to this TVL increase. The recent rise in Ether’s price—up about 8% over the past week to $3,197—probably helped. When ETH goes up, the dollar value of locked assets naturally increases too.
There’s also speculation around Ink’s planned token launch. Kraken has mentioned plans to integrate the INK token into its core products, with an airdrop slated for eligible users through its Kraken Drops program. Though details haven’t been disclosed yet, this anticipation might be driving some of the activity.
What’s interesting to me is how this growth pattern differs from what we often see in crypto. Usually, user growth and TVL growth move together. Here, we have one going up while the other goes down. Perhaps it suggests that larger players are moving significant amounts of capital onto the network, while smaller users are becoming less active.
Or maybe it’s just a temporary phase. The network is still relatively young, having launched in December 2024. These early patterns don’t always predict long-term trends. Still, crossing $500 million in TVL is a meaningful milestone for any Layer 2, especially one from a centralized exchange like Kraken.
It’ll be worth watching how this develops, particularly when the INK token launches and whether user activity picks up again. For now, Ink has established itself among the larger emerging blockchains by TVL, which is no small achievement in today’s crowded Layer 2 landscape.
