Standard Chartered: AAVE could surge to $3,500 by the end of 2030, a roughly 50-fold increase from its current price.

Standard Chartered’s Head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick has initiated coverage on decentralized lending protocol Aave, projecting the AAVE token could surge to $3,500 by the end of 2030—roughly a 50x increase from its current level of around $70. Kendrick noted Aave has moved past market turmoil tied to the April network hack, with assets starting to flow back to the platform. The protocol appears to have recovered from the incident and remains on track to retain its dominance in on-chain lending markets. In April, KelpDAO’s rsETH bridge collapse roiled DeFi, as attackers used roughly $290 million in stolen tokens as collateral on Aave to borrow real assets, exposing the protocol to a potential maximum loss of $230 million and triggering depositor outflows. Kendrick likened Aave to an automated, blockchain-based bank with no staff or discretionary decision-making. He added that at its peak in October 2025, Aave held around $75 billion in deposits—a sum that would rank it among the top 30 largest banks in the U.S. if it were a traditional financial institution. Looking ahead, Kendrick projects the value of tokenized assets actively used in DeFi applications will grow 37x by the end of this decade. Since Aave’s revenue model is closely tied to lending activity and deposits, Standard Chartered expects the protocol’s growth to translate directly to gains for the AAVE token. The report also notes that Aave’s token buyback program could be restarted, acting as an additional catalyst. Aave’s Horizon initiative, which aims to support lending using tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral in permissioned environments, may help attract traditional financial institutions and accelerate adoption.