- Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Aave with a US$3,500 (AU$5,075) AAVE price target by the end of 2030, implying roughly 50 times its current price near US$70 (AU$101.50).
- Analyst Geoff Kendrick projected the token would climb in steps, reaching about US$180 (AU$261) by year-end and US$2,200 (AU$3,190) by 2029 before its 2030 target.
- The bank tied the call to a projected 37-fold rise in tokenised assets used in DeFi, while cautioning that Aave’s institutional push is “not yet proven.”
Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Aave with a US$3,500 (AU$5,075) price target for its AAVE token by the end of 2030, a level that would represent roughly 50 times the token’s current price near US$70 (AU$101.50).
The target was set by Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital assets research, who framed it as a multi-year climb rather than a sudden move.
In the Wednesday note, his projection has AAVE reaching about US$180 (AU$261) by the end of this year, then US$600 (AU$870), US$1,200 (AU$1,740) and US$2,200 (AU$3,190) over the following three years before hitting the 2030 figure.
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A Bet on DeFi’s Revival
Kendrick tied the forecast to a projected recovery in decentralised lending and the growth of real-world assets brought on-chain. He estimated that the value of tokenised assets actively used in DeFi applications would grow 37-fold, to US$2.7 trillion (AU$3.92 trillion), by 2030.
The bank likened Aave to an automated on-chain bank, noting that it earns fees primarily through the spread between what it pays depositors and charges borrowers.
On that model, rising on-chain deposits and borrowing demand would feed token appreciation. Aave drew about US$75 billion (AU$108.75 billion) in deposits at its October 2025 peak, and Standard Chartered flagged a potential relaunch of its token buyback program as a further catalyst. The Horizon initiative, which is designed to let institutions lend against tokenised real-world assets in a permissioned setting, sits at the centre of that thesis.
The bullish call comes despite a major exploit that hit the Aave ecosystem earlier this year, an episode Kendrick said the protocol has largely recovered from as deposits gradually return. The note also placed the AAVE call alongside the bank’s long-run targets for the largest digital assets, including US$500,000 (AU$725,000) for bitcoin and US$40,000 (AU$58,000) for ether.
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