Standard Chartered has projected that the value of tokenized assets active in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector will surge to $2.7 trillion by the end of 2030—a nearly 37‑fold increase from current levels—according to a research note published Monday. The bold forecast, led by the bank’s head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, coincides with the initiation of coverage on Uniswap, the largest decentralized exchange, and points to a seismic shift as Wall Street migrates traditional investments on‑chain.
Kendrick estimates that the share of tokenized assets participating in DeFi will climb from just 3.5% today to 30% by the close of the decade. This expansion, he argues, will be fueled by the integration of real‑world assets, stablecoins, and native crypto assets into on‑chain trading infrastructure. Against that backdrop, the bank sees Uniswap’s native token, UNI, soaring from roughly $2.50 to $100 by 2030—outperforming both Bitcoin and Ethereum over the same timeframe.
Kendrick likened Uniswap to YouTube and Coinbase to Netflix, asserting that traditional financial institutions should view Uniswap “less as a retail DEX app and more as market infrastructure that TradFi can integrate with once tokenized assets scale.” The platform’s automated market‑maker model and immutable rules, he wrote, give Wall Street firms confidence that underlying mechanics won’t shift as adoption grows. Uniswap’s late‑2025 “fee switch” activation has added a deflationary element: approximately 1% of the UNI supply is burned annually, and a massive retroactive burn has already cut the total supply from 1 trillion to about 895 million tokens.
The integration of real‑world assets is already underway. In February, BlackRock announced that its tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, would be available via UniswapX, the protocol’s auction‑based swapping interface, with the asset manager reportedly also purchasing UNI tokens. Kendrick noted that this marks a credible path for tokenized assets to use decentralized settlement. Still, he acknowledged risks: smaller, nimble competitors could develop specialized solutions, and regulatory headwinds around tokenization compliance could emerge.
For the nearer term, Standard Chartered set a year‑end price target of $6.50 for UNI. Over its lifetime, Uniswap has processed more than $3.7 trillion in volume and collected $5.6 billion in fees, according to DeFiLlama, underscoring its dominance. The new price outlook sees the token commanding a far higher multiple as trillions of dollars’ worth of traditional assets move onto decentralized rails.
