Author: Decrypt Agent

Translation: Shenchao TechFlow

Shenchao Brief: Standard Chartered has initiated coverage on AAVE, giving a target price of $3,500 by the end of 2030, an increase of nearly 50 times from the current price of about $70. Aave has just experienced a halving of deposits due to the April KelpDAO incident and is currently in an early recovery phase. Standard Chartered’s core logic is that the size of DeFi assets will grow 37 times before 2030, with Aave, as the largest lending protocol, set to directly benefit. The report also predicts BTC at $500,000 and ETH at $40,000.

Standard Chartered's analysts are heavily betting on Aave. Aave is one of the largest lending platforms in decentralized finance (DeFi), and Standard Chartered predicts its token may rise nearly 50 times by the end of 2030 from current levels. The timing of this prediction comes only two months after Aave was affected by a significant ecological event.

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's Global Head of Digital Asset Research, initiated coverage on AAVE in a report released on Wednesday, giving a target price of $3,500 by the end of 2030. At the time of the report's release, the price of AAVE was about $70.

Standard Chartered expects the token to rise in phases: reaching $180 by the end of this year, followed by $600, $1,200, and $2,200 in the next three years, ultimately touching $3,500 by the end of 2030.

AAVE's all-time high was in 2021, exceeding $661. Since then, it has not approached that level again, although it briefly rebounded to nearly $400 after Trump won the election at the end of 2024.

Impact of the April KelpDAO Incident Still Being Digested

The optimistic prediction comes against the backdrop of Aave having just gone through a tough period. In April, the smaller DeFi platform KelpDAO was hacked for $291 million, affecting Aave and causing liquidity issues, with a large number of DeFi users panic withdrawing their assets.

Deposits on the platform have since drastically shrunk from $44 billion to $23 billion; active loans have also decreased from around $18 billion to $9.5 billion. Standard Chartered pointed out that Aave's market share in lending has slipped from an average of 59% before the incident to 38%.

Standard Chartered's Core Logic: 37 Times Growth in DeFi Asset Size

Standard Chartered believes that the impact of this round of shocks has largely been released. Aave founder Stani Kulechov has proposed a new risk control framework, and there have been signs of deposit recovery since June.

However, Standard Chartered's bigger bet is on the overall trend in DeFi: the bank predicts that the value of tokenized assets deployed in DeFi will grow 37 times before 2030, reaching $2.7 trillion. This growth is driven by the expansion of stablecoins, the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) issued by traditional financial institutions, and the rise in cryptocurrency prices.

Aave's revenue primarily comes from the interest rate spread— the difference between the rates paid to depositors and those charged to borrowers. Standard Chartered believes that Aave's revenue and token price should closely follow the growth in DeFi asset size.

Risks: Institutional Lending Business Not Yet Proven

However, this prediction also carries significant uncertainty. Standard Chartered itself noted that Aave's institutional lending division, Aave Horizon, is "feasible but not yet validated," with the key being whether scalable partnerships can be established with traditional financial institutions, which has not yet been achieved.

The prices of digital assets themselves are also extremely volatile. On Wednesday, Bitcoin briefly fell to a 21-month low, and other major assets also declined. AAVE rose above $77 after the report's release but subsequently retraced most of its gains. However, as Bitcoin began to rebound, AAVE rose again to $79, with an intraday increase of nearly 9%.

In the same report, Standard Chartered also provided other predictions: Ethereum's target price in 2030 is $40,000 (current quoted price $1,614), and Bitcoin's target price in 2030 is $500,000 (current $60,831).