A Dune study commissioned by decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch found that about $1.6 billion in capital sat idle in concentrated liquidity pools across major DEXs in the first half of 2026. That amounted to 85% of the $1.84 billion in total concentrated liquidity tracked in the research. CoinDesk reported that the unused capital may be costing liquidity providers around $150 million a year in missed fee income.
Most concentrated liquidity was not touched by trades
Dune tracked concentrated liquidity pools on Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and Aerodrome. It found that 85% of the capital in those pools was not actually reached by trading activity during the first half of 2026.
In a more specific breakdown, about $542 million, or 29.5% of the total, remained completely out of range for an average week. In practice, that means the price bands set by those positions were never hit by the market, so they could not earn fees.
Dune based its estimate on a weighted annualized fee return of about 35% for in-range liquidity. On that basis, the report put the annual fee income missed because of idle capital at roughly $150 million.
Large LPs accounted for a major share of idle capital
The study also pointed to a result that runs against a common assumption: idle capital was not concentrated among smaller liquidity providers.
- For positions below $1,000, 54% were out of range.
- For positions above $1 million, only 26% were out of range.
Still, because large positions make up such a big share of concentrated liquidity pools, LPs with positions above $1 million contributed 47% of all idle capital, equal to about $260 million.
According to the study, that suggests the effective liquidity bottleneck on DEXs is driven more by a small number of large holders than by retail-sized participants.
Fragmentation reduced the liquidity traders could actually reach
Dune said idle capital and fragmentation are two sides of the same market structure problem. Even when all in-range liquidity is added together, that capital is split across multiple DEXs, pools, and fee tiers, leaving no single LP or routing path able to access all of it.
That means the liquidity a trader can really reach in a single transaction is below the headline TVL shown across the broader DeFi market.
Why 1inch commissioned the research
The report also tied the study to 1inch’s business focus. As a DEX aggregator, 1inch’s core value proposition is to search across exchanges for the best available liquidity, and the research provides quantified evidence that liquidity efficiency on a single DEX is not sufficient.