Standard Chartered Sees $4 Trillion of Tokenized Assets by 2028, DeFi as Key Beneficiary
Summary
- Standard Chartered said the market for on-chain tokenized assets will reach $4 trillion by 2028.
- The report said DeFi protocols will be key beneficiaries as stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization continue to expand.
- Kendrick said passage of the CLARITY Act would be a key catalyst for accelerating the move of traditional financial assets on-chain.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
Standard Chartered projects on-chain tokenized assets will reach $4 trillion by 2028. The bank said decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocols will be among the main beneficiaries as stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets gain traction.
The Block reported on May 18 that Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital assets research, wrote in a report that the stablecoin market and the tokenized real-world asset market will each expand to $2 trillion by the end of 2028.
Kendrick identified composability as DeFi's main strength. He described DeFi as a structure in which "1+1=3." On-chain, a single asset can generate yield, serve as collateral and remain liquid at the same time. In traditional finance, delivering the same outcome would require multiple institutions and processes.
The report pointed to BlackRock's tokenized US Treasury fund, BUIDL, as a representative example. The product provides US Treasury yields while also functioning as a DeFi-compatible asset. It can be used as collateral for lending protocols and as a reserve asset for stablecoins.
Kendrick said tokenization of institutional-grade assets will be a core driver of the digital-asset market's next growth phase. He added that large financial institutions are likely to prefer established DeFi protocols with proven risk-management frameworks.
According to the report, DeFi lending protocol Aave at one point grew to a size comparable with the 38th-largest US bank by assets. Daily on-chain stablecoin lending totaled about $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
The report also cited a Bitcoin lending product from Coinbase and Morpho. Coinbase provides the user interface and custody, while Morpho supplies the lending logic and liquidation system. The product's loan volume is about $1.75 billion.
Kendrick said passage of the CLARITY Act, a US crypto market structure bill, would be a key catalyst accelerating the migration of traditional financial assets onto blockchains.
Minseung Kang
minriver@bloomingbit.ioBlockchain journalist | Writer of Trade Now & Altcoin Now, must-read content for investors.
