That leaves Stacks ahead of Rootstock by $5.7 million.
Its $448,000 in quarterly fees was more than double what Hemi generated, at $208,000. Merlin followed with $181,000.
Trading activity also picked up into quarter-end. Weekly volume on Stacks decentralized exchanges peaked at $16.7 million in late September 2026.
What drove the quarter
The biggest catalyst arrived in July 2026. That month, Stacks launched Bitcoin Staking on mainnet through the PoX-5 hard fork.
The upgrade introduced yields funded by miners, paid out through set bonding periods. Approximately 735 $BTC entered staking across the first two bonding periods after launch.
The upgrade also lifted participation on the native token side. $STX staking rose to 493 million $STX following PoX-5.
Liquid staking added another layer in early September. StackingDAO introduced stBTC, a token that represents staked Bitcoin and can still be moved and used elsewhere.
Lending runs the show
By September 30, 2026, lending made up 92.1% of total DeFi TVL on the network. That works out to $81.9 million.
Zest Protocol sat at the center of that activity, holding the dominant share of locked value at quarter-end. The protocol reported deposits above $122 million, with borrowed assets reaching $42 million.
The post-quarter reality check
By early November 2026, Stacks chain TVL had slipped to approximately $57 million.
Counting liquid staking alongside core DeFi, the broader Stacks ecosystem reached approximately $123 million, even as the headline chain figure moved around.
Background: the Bitcoin layer contest
Bitcoin was not built for complex financial apps. Its base layer is deliberately limited, which is great for security and less great for lending markets or token swaps.
Stacks runs its own consensus mechanism while anchoring to Bitcoin, and it competes with networks like Rootstock, Mezo, Hemi and Merlin for the same pool of $BTC holders.
What this means
For the Bitcoin layer sector, the Q3 results show that native yield products can move capital. The July Bitcoin Staking launch lined up with Stacks climbing to the top spot, and roughly 735 $BTC entering staking suggests demand exists for returns on idle Bitcoin.
Concentration is the obvious risk. With lending accounting for 92.1% of DeFi TVL and one protocol holding most of that, the ecosystem leans heavily on a single sector and a single app.
The November decline to approximately $57 million also shows how fragile these rankings can be. A $5.7 million lead over Rootstock at quarter-end is not much of a cushion when locked value can swing by tens of millions in weeks.
