Today in Crypto: Here is why a massive $1.6 billion in crypto liquidity is sitting idle and wasting away

Across major exchanges, about $1.6 billion in liquidity deposited across major decentralized exchanges was not being used to its full potential during the first half of 2026, a new research finds.

The figure represents 85% of the $1.84 billion tracked across concentrated liquidity pools on Uniswap, PancakeSwap and Aerodrome, according to research by analytics firm Dune commissioned by decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch.

Roughly $542 million, or 29.5%, sat fully out of range in an average week.

The money had not left the decentralized finance ecosystem.

It was priced so high that traders could not use it.

The findings come as retail platforms bring more users and traditional assets onchain and financial firms expand their work on tokenized funds and blockchain-based settlement.

1inch argues that idle liquidity will become more costly as markets grow, more capital will be stranded, and more trading fees will go unearned as liquidity becomes thinner.

“Decentralized exchanges have grown into one of the deepest, most liquid markets in crypto,” said Filippo Armani, research lead at Dune.