Galaxy Research: The crypto lending market in Q2 contracted by 16.8% quarter-on-quarter, but the deleveraging process is "orderly and mild."

Galaxy Research released the Q2 2026 Crypto Leverage Market Report, showing that the total amount of crypto collateralized lending decreased by 16.78% month-on-month to $56.16 billion, down 40.13% from the Q3 2025 peak of $78.69 billion. Among them, DeFi lending shrank by 27.61% month-on-month to $20.43 billion, while CeFi borrowing decreased by 9.62% month-on-month to $22.98 billion, marking the first time since Q3 2023 that CeFi volume has surpassed DeFi. Tether continues to dominate the CeFi market with a 58.54% share.

The report points out that the current deleveraging differs from previous bear markets in its "orderly and moderate" pace: with consecutive quarterly declines of only 10%, 5%, and 17%, rather than the cliff-like collapse of over 55% in a single quarter as seen in 2022. In the futures market, open interest in Q2 slightly decreased by 3.08% month-on-month to $103.2 billion, but rebounded to about $114 billion in July. Regarding institutional corporate debt, Strategy completed a $1.5 billion debt buyback in May, reducing the total outstanding debt in the DAT industry to $16.1 billion. The report believes that if the market does not experience severe liquidations or counterparty defaults, deleveraging is expected to continue in a gradual step-down pattern.