Standard Chartered Forecasts DeFi Total Value Locked to Reach $2.7 Trillion by 2030

Standard Chartered projects that assets locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) could rise to about $2.7 trillion by 2030, roughly 37 times current levels, driven mainly by real-world asset tokenization and the migration of crypto-native assets onto on-chain protocols. According to ChainCatcher, the forecast was cited by Cointelegraph.

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, said the next “structural growth opportunity” for digital assets will come from DeFi protocols. The report expects the share of tokenized assets entering the DeFi system to increase to about 30% by 2030 from roughly 3.5% currently.

The report said current usage remains limited, with only about 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenized real-world assets actively used in DeFi protocols, suggesting room for deeper penetration. It added that reaching the $2.7 trillion level would depend on rapid expansion in the overall supply of tokenized assets and a significant improvement in on-chain capital efficiency.

Standard Chartered reiterated an earlier projection that tokenized non-stablecoin real-world assets could reach $2 trillion by 2028, with money market funds and U.S. equities as major components.

On infrastructure, the report noted that decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap could become key trading venues for tokenized assets, while traditional financial institutions entering on-chain markets may prioritize security and stability. It also cautioned that tokenization does not automatically increase liquidity, and fragmentation across blockchains and asset standards could continue to constrain market depth and unified pricing.