Standard Chartered Launches Aave Coverage with $3,500 Target

Standard Chartered, a major international bank, has initiated formal coverage of the decentralized lending protocol Aave with a long-term price target of $3,500 for its native AAVE token by the end of 2030. The forecast, published in a research note on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, implies a potential 50-fold increase from the token's current price near $76.

The bank's analysis, led by global head of digital assets research Geoff Kendrick, positions Aave as an automated, blockchain-based bank poised to benefit from the expected growth of tokenized real-world assets within decentralized finance. Standard Chartered projects the value of tokenized assets actively used in DeFi will grow 37 times by 2030, reaching approximately $2.7 trillion, which would directly drive deposits and lending activity on protocols like Aave.

The report acknowledges recent challenges for the protocol, specifically the fallout from a major exploit in April 2026. In that incident, attackers linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group drained roughly $292 million from the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge. The stolen assets were used as collateral on Aave, exposing the protocol to potential losses and triggering significant...