Standard Chartered eyes 33x on Morpho; Robinhood turns it into a yield machine on the same day

Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Morpho (MORPHO) with a $60 price target for the end of 2030, a call that implies roughly 33x upside from a lower base when published this month and closer to 30x from current levels. Geoff Kendrick, who leads digital assets research at the bank, mapped a yearly path to the target: $3.50 in 2026, $11 in 2027, $22 in 2028, $40 in 2029 and $60 in 2030. The bank said MORPHO would outperform both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) through 2030 under its base case, placing the token alongside Aave (AAVE) in the bank's growing lineup of decentralized finance (DeFi) bets. MORPHO traded near $2.05 on the day the note landed, up over 10% on the session and ranked 57th by market value. Standard Chartered also cut its Ethereum target last month.

On the same day, Robinhood began rolling out Crypto Earn, a decentralized lending product powered by Morpho's infrastructure, to eligible U.S. customers through the Robinhood app and Robinhood Chain. The first vault is curated by Steakhouse Financial and incorporates Maple Finance's newly launched syrupUSDG, an institutional credit product backed by the regulated Global Dollar (USDG) stablecoin issued by Paxos on behalf of the Global Dollar Network. Maple said it has originated more than $22 billion in institutional loans since 2022. "Morpho provides the open credit network that enables specialized credit strategies to reach users at scale," Morpho CEO and co-founder Paul Frambot said in the announcement. Robinhood listed an estimated 7% APY for the offering, subject to change.

Standard Chartered framed Morpho as "part on-chain bank, part infrastructure for on-chain banks and asset managers," splitting the protocol into Morpho Markets, which works like Aave, and Morpho Vaults, which the bank called the differentiator that can pull large traditional finance (TradFi) funds on-chain. Morpho is the second-largest DeFi lending protocol behind Aave, with the two together controlling 57% of deposits and 63% of active loans across lending protocols, per DefiLlama data cited by the bank. Morpho holds about $9.8 billion in deposits, and custody platforms including Fireblocks, Anchorage and Taurus have integrated its vaults. Standard Chartered expects DeFi assets to grow 37 times by 2030 and wants Morpho to scale with that flow.

The protocol's developer, Morpho Labs, recently closed a $175 million funding round that valued the protocol at $2 billion. Standard Chartered warned that growth could arrive in lumps and that the target hinges on Morpho building deep TradFi relationships. Robinhood said access to Crypto Earn will expand gradually over the coming weeks, while Maple plans to extend syrupUSDG to additional blockchain networks beyond Ethereum and Robinhood Chain.

MORPHO climbed 14.15% over the 24 hours around the announcements, with trading volume jumping 315.37%. Open interest climbed 19.17% to $39.19 million, while derivatives volume rose 315.37% to approximately $135.16 million, indicating fresh capital entered futures markets rather than existing positions simply rotating. Morpho recorded a daily Netflow of -$66.94K, with slightly more tokens leaving exchanges than entering. Price defended the $1.64 support zone twice before advancing toward the $2.24 resistance area, and the MACD strengthened as the MACD line crossed above the signal line with green histogram bars expanding.