Standard Chartered Sees Aave Rallying to $3,500 by 2030 on DeFi Resurgence

Geoff Kendrick said Aave has largely moved beyond the April cyberattack disruption and is now positioned to benefit from the expanding growth of tokenized assets and decentralized finance.

Standard Chartered’s Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, has initiated coverage on Aave (AAVE), projecting the token could reach $3,500 by the end of 2030 as DeFi activity and tokenized real-world assets regain momentum.

The forecast implies nearly a 50x increase from AAVE’s current price near $70 and suggests the token could outperform both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) over that period, according to the report.

Kendrick noted that Aave has “moved past the April cybertheft incident” as liquidity begins flowing back into the protocol, adding that it remains well positioned to sustain its leadership in on-chain lending.

The April incident involving KelpDAO’s rsETH bridge triggered significant turmoil in DeFi after attackers used roughly $290 million in stolen assets as collateral on Aave to borrow real funds.

The exploit exposed Aave to potential losses of up to $230 million and prompted withdrawals from users, highlighting how vulnerabilities in one protocol can rapidly spread across the broader DeFi ecosystem.

Kendrick described Aave as a blockchain-based, automated lending system that functions like a bank without intermediaries or discretionary oversight. At its peak in October 2025, the protocol held around $75 billion in deposits—comparable to the scale of a top-tier U.S. bank.

Looking ahead, he expects the value of tokenized assets used within DeFi to grow 37-fold by the end of the decade. Given Aave’s revenue is closely tied to lending volumes and deposits, this expansion could translate directly into strong upside for the AAVE token.

The report also highlighted the possible return of Aave’s token buyback program as an additional catalyst. Its Horizon initiative—focused on lending against tokenized real-world assets in a permissioned framework—may attract institutional participation and accelerate adoption.

Despite recent weakness across the broader crypto market, Kendrick said the overall environment is improving, positioning Aave as a key beneficiary of renewed capital inflows into DeFi.

Aave recently traded up 5.6% over 24 hours at around $76.

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