Geoff Kendrick said Aave has moved past the disruption caused by April’s cyberattack and is now positioned to benefit from accelerating growth in tokenized assets and decentralized finance.
Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research has initiated coverage on Aave (AAVE), projecting the token could rise to $3,500 by the end of 2030 as DeFi adoption and real-world asset tokenization expand.
The forecast implies nearly a 50x increase from AAVE’s current price near $70, with potential to outperform both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) over the same horizon, according to the report.
Kendrick said Aave has “moved past the April cybertheft incident” as liquidity begins returning to the protocol, adding that it remains well positioned to maintain its dominance in on-chain lending.
The April incident involving KelpDAO’s rsETH bridge triggered major stress in DeFi after attackers used roughly $290 million in stolen tokens as collateral on Aave to borrow real assets.
The exploit left Aave exposed to potential losses of up to $230 million, triggered user withdrawals, and highlighted how vulnerabilities in one protocol can quickly ripple across the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Kendrick described Aave as an automated, blockchain-based lending system that operates without intermediaries or human discretion. At its peak in October 2025, the protocol held roughly $75 billion in deposits, placing it among the largest banking systems in the U.S. by scale.
Looking ahead, he expects the value of tokenized assets used in DeFi to expand around 37-fold by the end of the decade. Since Aave’s revenue is closely tied to lending activity and deposits, that growth could translate directly into significant upside for the AAVE token.
The report also pointed to a potential restart of Aave’s token buyback program as another catalyst. Its Horizon initiative—focused on lending against tokenized real-world assets in a permissioned setup—could further attract institutional participation and speed up adoption.
Despite recent softness across crypto markets, Kendrick said the broader outlook is improving, with Aave likely to benefit as capital flows back into DeFi.
Aave was last up 5.6% over 24 hours, trading around $76.
