- Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick initiated coverage of Aave with a $3,500 price target by the end of 2030, implying a roughly 50x increase from current levels.
- Kendrick said Aave has largely recovered from market-share losses tied to the April KelpDAO exploit and is regaining assets on its platform.
- Tokenized assets active in DeFi are expected to grow 37-fold by 2030, providing a major tailwind for Aave's lending business.
Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick has initiated coverage of decentralized lending protocol Aave AAVE$74.90, forecasting the token could climb to $3,500 by the end of 2030 as the platform benefits from renewed growth in decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets.
Kendrick's target implies a roughly 50-fold increase from AAVE's current price near $70 and would see the token outperform both bitcoin BTC$62,587.95 and ether (ETH) over the period, according to the report.
"We think Aave has moved past the April cybertheft incident as assets start to return to the platform," said Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered in a new report. The protocol appears to have recovered from the episode and remains well-positioned to maintain its dominance in onchain lending, he added.
The April collapse of KelpDAO's rsETH bridge sent shockwaves through DeFi after attackers used roughly $290 million of stolen tokens as collateral on Aave to borrow real assets.
The incident left Aave facing potential losses of up to $230 million, sparked a rush for exits by depositors and underscored how vulnerabilities in one protocol can quickly spread across the broader DeFi ecosystem.
