Crypto Lending Falls 17% to $56 Billion: Is This Slide Healthier Than 2022?

Crypto-collateralized lending shrank by $11.33 billion during the second quarter of 2026, a 16.78% drop that left the market at $56.16 billion, according to Galaxy Research.

The contraction extended a third consecutive quarterly decline for crypto lending. Galaxy framed the slide as an orderly unwind rather than forced selling.

Every Crypto Lending Category Lost Ground

The market now sits 40.13% below its third-quarter 2025 peak of $78.69 billion. No segment escaped the pullback.

“Q2 was the first quarter since Q4 2022 in which onchain lending declined across every category (CeFi, DeFi, and the crypto-collateralized portion of collateral debt position stablecoins), as the market’s deleveraging trend continued,” Galaxy Research revealed.

Outstanding borrows on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending apps fell $7.79 billion, or 27.61%, to $20.43 billion. This was the steepest drop among the three legs.

Centralized finance (CeFi) open borrows contracted 9.62% to $22.98 billion. The reduction came mainly from Tether, whose market share slipped 371 basis points to 58.54%. 

Galaxy, Coinbase, Ledn, Arch, Sygnum, and Milo all grew their books during the quarter. The crypto-collateralized portion of the CDP stablecoin supply fell 7.86%. 

“Again, there is potential for double-counting between total CeFi loan book size and CDP stablecoin supply, because some CeFi entities might rely on minting CDP stablecoins with crypto collateral to fund loans to offchain clients,” the report read.

Corporate borrowing eased as well. Strategy completed a $1.5 billion debt repurchase in May, cutting debt tied to digital asset treasury strategies to $16.1 billion.

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Contraction Looks Nothing Like the 2022 Unwind

The pace separates this cycle from the last one. Crypto-backed lending collapsed more than 55% in the second quarter of 2022, then fell a further 9% and 29% in the following two quarters.

The current sequence runs 10%, 5%, and 17% across three quarters. Galaxy attributes the difference to a gradual reduction in risk rather than to forced liquidations or counterparty failures.

“Lending markets are taking the stairs down, not the elevator,” Galaxy said.

Post-quarter data hints that the decline may be slowing. DeFi borrows measured $21.94 billion on July 21, up from $20.43 billion at quarter’s end.

Futures open interest, which fell 3.08% to $103.2 billion in Q2, recovered to roughly $114 billion by the end of July. Galaxy frames these as early signals that open interest and onchain borrows may be finding a floor. 

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