Ink’s rapid growth after slow start
Kraken’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, called Ink, has just crossed the $500 million mark in total value locked. That’s a pretty significant milestone, especially when you consider where it started. For most of its early life after launching in December 2024, Ink had less than $10 million locked up. The growth has been almost entirely concentrated in the last few months.
According to DefiLlama data, Ink’s TVL stood at nearly $503 million as of Tuesday. That’s up about 3% in just 24 hours. The real acceleration began in October 2025, which makes sense when you look at what happened around that time.
The Tydro factor
The big catalyst appears to be the October launch of Tydro, a lending protocol built on Ink. Tydro is essentially a white-label deployment of Aave, the open-source DeFi platform. It’s become the dominant application on the network by a wide margin.
At last check, Tydro’s total market size was around $737.5 million. About $443.8 million is available to borrow, with $293.7 million currently borrowed. The protocol alone holds roughly $446.6 million in TVL, which represents a 34% increase over the past month.
What’s interesting is how lopsided the ecosystem is right now. The next-largest protocol, Nado, has about $40.8 million locked. Velodrome follows with around $14 million. So Tydro is really carrying the network at this point.
Market conditions and speculation
Some of the increase might just be timing. Ether has been up about 8% over the past week, trading around $3,197. When ETH rises, TVL numbers across all DeFi protocols tend to look better in dollar terms.
But I think there’s more to it. There’s been growing speculation about Ink’s planned token launch. Kraken has mentioned plans to integrate the INK token into its core products, with an airdrop scheduled for eligible users through its Kraken Drops program. The details haven’t been fully disclosed yet, but that kind of announcement tends to attract capital.
A curious user activity trend
Here’s where things get a bit puzzling. While liquidity has surged dramatically, user activity has actually moved in the opposite direction. Daily active users peaked at just over 157,000 back in March 2025. Since then, it’s been a steady decline.
Currently, Ink has about 49,000 daily active users according to Token Terminal. That’s less than a third of its peak. So you have more money flowing in, but fewer people actually using the network day-to-day.
Maybe that’s just how these things work sometimes. Early adopters come in, then capital follows, then maybe users come back later? Or perhaps the current users are just moving larger amounts of capital. It’s hard to say without more detailed transaction data.
What this means for Kraken’s strategy
Crossing $500 million in TVL places Ink among the larger emerging blockchains by this metric. For Kraken, this represents validation of their Layer 2 strategy. They’ve managed to build something that’s attracting real capital, even if the user numbers aren’t keeping pace.
The concentration around Tydro suggests that lending might be Ink’s killer app, at least for now. Whether other protocols can catch up remains to be seen. The network’s success will likely depend on diversifying beyond a single dominant application.
Still, $500 million is nothing to sneeze at. It shows that centralized exchanges can build successful Layer 2 networks, even in a crowded space. The coming token launch will be the next big test for Ink’s growth trajectory.
