Banking giant Standard Chartered has identified Aave as a potential beneficiary of tokenized assets as they move into decentralized finance (DeFi), saying the protocol could re-establish itself as the dominant onchain lending platform.
In a Wednesday research note, Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research, said dynamic tokenized assets in DeFi could attract more deposits to Aave.
“Despite recent failures, we are optimistic about the prospects for the largest company, Aave [DeFi] loan protocol,” Kendrick wrote.
The bank said Aave’s recent performance had been weighed down by the broader decline in digital asset prices and the fallout from the April cybertheft involving KelpDAO. Standard Chartered said the $292 million incident affected Aave, contributing to a decline in market share for the protocol’s loans as assets leave the platform.
“We think both of these negatives will go away soon,” Kendrick said. “We anticipate significant increases in digital asset token prices at the end of the year and believe Aave has moved beyond the April incident.”
Aave’s October 2025 deposit base of approximately $75 billion would rank as the 30th largest deposit base for a U.S. bank, according to the research note. Kendrick added that Standard Chartered expects Aave to regain some of that scale as tokenized assets become more widely used as collateral and sources of liquidity in DeFi.
The total value of Aave is locked. Source: DefiLlama
Standard Chartered extends the tokenization thesis to include lending
Aave’s forecast extends Standard Chartered’s tokenization thesis from decentralized trading to lending, with the protocol becoming a potential venue for borrowing in exchange for tokenized real-world assets (RWA).
Standard Chartered said in an earlier research note that assets locked in DeFi could reach $2.7 trillion by 2030, driven by RWAs and other crypto assets moving through onchain protocols.
Related: StanChart claims that Ethereum price will catch up with bullish internal indicators
Kendrick identified decentralized exchange Uniswap as a potential trading hub for tokenized markets, citing its scale, brand and history of operating through multiple cryptocurrency market cycles.
