Standard Chartered gave a long-term forecast that AAVE, the native token of decentralised finance (DeFi) lending protocol Aave, could rise to $3,500 by the end of 2030. It said there was room for a roughly 50-fold gain from current levels if the DeFi market expands and institutional inflows continue.

According to blockchain outlet Decrypt on June 24, Standard Chartered began coverage of AAVE in a report released that day and set an end-2030 price target of $3,500. That is about 50 times the AAVE price of around $70 at the time the report was written.

Geoff Kendrick (제프 켄드릭), head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, projected AAVE would reach $180 by the end of this year, then $600 in 2027, $1,200 in 2028 and $2,200 in 2029, before rising to $3,500 by the end of 2030.

The bank cited rapid growth in the DeFi market as its main basis. Standard Chartered projected tokenised assets flowing into DeFi would rise about 37 times from current levels to $2.7 trillion by 2030.

It cited the spread of stablecoins, increased tokenisation of real-world assets by traditional financial institutions, and growth in the cryptocurrency market as key drivers of DeFi expansion.

It also gave a positive assessment of Aave's business model. Because Aave earns fees from the interest-rate spread between assets users deposit and assets borrowed, it said revenue and token value are likely to rise together as the DeFi market grows.

The recent environment around Aave has not been smooth. After a hacking incident of about $291 million at smaller DeFi platform KelpDAO in April, investors withdrew funds and the Aave ecosystem was affected.

During that period, total value locked fell to about $23 billion from about $44 billion, and active loans declined to about $9.5 billion from $18 billion. Its share of deposits in the overall DeFi lending market also dropped to 38 percent from an average 59 percent before the incident.

Standard Chartered judged the worst phase had passed. It positively assessed that Aave founder Stani Kulechov (스타니 쿨레초프) proposed a new risk-management framework and that total value locked has shown signs of recovery since June.

The market also reacted immediately to the report. AAVE rose about 9 percent on the day, climbing above $77 intraday after the report was released, giving up some gains, then moving back above $79. It also noted that volatility increased across major cryptocurrencies, with bitcoin sliding to its lowest in 21 months on the same day.

Standard Chartered said even its optimistic outlook required conditions. It said expansion of the institutional-focused 'Aave Horizon' business was a key variable for long-term growth and that broader cooperation with traditional financial firms would be needed to reach the target price. The report said, "The expansion of the institutional business is feasible but has not yet been proven."

Standard Chartered also set end-2030 targets in the same report of $500,000 for bitcoin and $40,000 for ethereum.