An onchain study by analytics platform Dune, produced for DEX aggregator 1inch, found that an average 85% of concentrated-liquidity capital on decentralized exchanges sat underutilized in the first half of 2026. Of that amount, 29.5% was fully outside the active price range, or roughly $542 million of idle capital in a typical week.
Dune said liquidity providers whose positions were out of range gave up about $150 million a year in fees. It calculated that figure by multiplying idle total value locked by the roughly 35% fee APR earned by in-range capital over the same period.
$1.6 billion and $542 million refer to different parts of the data
1inch, which commissioned the research, presented the findings on its own account as showing that "$1.6bn in DeFi capital is underutilized" and that "out-of-range positions miss out on $150mn in fees every year." Dune's breakdown shows those figures describe different slices of the dataset. The roughly $1.6 billion figure corresponds to about 85% of the pool set studied, while the roughly $542 million weekly idle figure counts only positions that were fully out of range.
Study rebuilt positions across roughly 200 active pools on seven chains
The research focused on concentrated liquidity, a model where providers deposit into a chosen price band instead of spreading capital across an entire curve. That setup raises fee efficiency when price remains inside the selected band, but a position earns nothing once price moves outside it.
Dune said it rebuilt every position in roughly 200 of the most active pools on Uniswap v3, PancakeSwap v3, Aerodrome Slipstream and Uniswap v4 from onchain deposit and withdrawal history. The work covered 26 weekly snapshots across seven chains and about $1.84 billion in average TVL.
Within the 85% tagged as underutilized, 29.5% was fully out of range. The remainder stayed technically in range but did not sit where price actually traded, so that capital also went unused in practice.
Idle capital is concentrated in individual wallets
Dune said most idle capital sits in individual wallets, while automated managers and bots tend to keep positions in range. On Base Uniswap v3, contracts hold about half the capital but only a small share of the idle portion, while individuals account for 82% of that idle capital.
About a third of the idle capital had not been touched for more than 90 days, with the heaviest concentration on Uniswap, according to the study.
Dune points to asset pairs and volatility, not mainly venue choice
Dune attributed the idleness mostly to the asset pair and its volatility rather than the venue itself. Even stablecoin pairs, the report said, ran around 30% out of range.
Report was commissioned by 1inch
The cover of the report states that the research was commissioned by 1inch, which builds tooling to route and manage DEX liquidity. Dune said the company stands to benefit from the conclusion that "capital efficiency is still the open frontier."
Dune also said venues that predate concentrated liquidity leave about 98.7% of capital underutilized, describing concentrated liquidity as a major improvement by comparison.