Standard Chartered sees DeFi assets reaching $2.7T

• Standard Chartered forecasts assets locked in decentralised finance will rise to US$2.7 trillion by 2030.
• The bank expects tokenised real-world assets and crypto-native assets to drive most of the projected growth.
• The forecast assumes a larger share of tokenised assets will be deployed into DeFi protocols over the next five years.

Standard Chartered expects assets locked in decentralised finance to increase to US$2.7 trillion by the end of 2030, representing a 37-fold rise from current levels.

The forecast is based on expectations that tokenised real-world assets and crypto-native assets will increasingly move through on-chain financial protocols.

“I estimate that the amount of tokenized assets active in DeFi will 37x by the end of 2030,” said Standard Chartered Head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick.

Kendrick said only about 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenised real-world assets are currently used in DeFi, but projected the share of tokenised assets deployed in DeFi could rise to 30% by 2030 from roughly 3.5% today.

Standard Chartered previously forecast that non-stablecoin tokenised real-world assets could reach US$2 trillion by 2028, with tokenised money market funds and US equities accounting for much of the growth; following the report there was no immediate market reaction.

Kendrick identified Uniswap (CRYPTO:UNI) as a potential beneficiary of increased tokenisation, citing the decentralised exchange's scale, operational history and potential appeal to traditional financial institutions.

Some industry participants have cautioned that tokenisation alone may not create deep liquidity, noting that issuing assets across multiple blockchains and formats can fragment markets and reduce trading efficiency.

At the time of reporting, Uniswap price was $2.94.