Standard Chartered: DeFi Could 37x to $2.7T, But Only If Tokenized Assets Actually Show Up

Standard Chartered projects that assets locked in decentralized finance will grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by the end of 2030, driven by tokenized real-world assets and crypto-native assets moving through onchain protocols. Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, outlined the forecast in a research note on Monday, calling DeFi the next opportunity for generational wealth in digital assets. "I think the next opportunity for generational wealth in digital assets is going to come via the DeFi protocols," Kendrick said. "I estimate that the amount of tokenized assets active in DeFi will 37x by the end of 2030."

Currently, only 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenized RWAs are used in DeFi, according to Kendrick. He projected the share of tokenized assets deployed in DeFi to climb to 30% by the end of 2030, from about 3.5% today, a nearly ninefold increase. The bank previously forecast that non-stablecoin tokenized RWAs would reach $2 trillion by the end of 2028, with tokenized money-market funds and US equities accounting for most of the projected market.

Industry participants have warned that tokenization alone does not guarantee deep or unified markets. Axis CEO Chris Kim told Cointelegraph that issuing the same asset across multiple blockchains and formats can produce siloed liquidity, pricing gaps and higher costs, limiting tradability even as overall market value expands. Oya Celiktemur, Ondo Finance's sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said at Paris Blockchain Week in April that tokenizing an illiquid asset does not "magically" make it liquid.

Kendrick identified Uniswap as a potential hub for tokenized markets, citing the decentralized exchange's scale, brand and track record across multiple crypto cycles. He said those attributes could matter most to traditional financial institutions bringing tokenized RWAs into DeFi, where security and reliability are priorities. "If Uniswap can commercialise enough and create significant enough TradFi partnerships to scale, its market cap-to transaction fees multiple is likely to increase, narrowing the gap with Coinbase," Kendrick wrote.