Summary
- Standard Chartered has begun coverage of Chainlink, projecting a target price of $200 by the end of 2030, significantly up from its current value of around $8.
- The bank forecasts that tokenized assets on the blockchain could hit $4 trillion by 2028, with DeFi assets potentially expanding 37 times to $2.7 trillion by 2030.
- As of Monday, Chainlink (LINK) was trading at approximately $8.25, reflecting a 0.8% decline for the day, based on CoinGecko data.
Standard Chartered has announced its coverage of Chainlink, estimating a target price of $200 by 2030, which represents a potential 25-fold increase from its current price of around $8, and suggests it will outperform both Bitcoin and Ethereum during this period.
Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, outlined a series of price milestones in a report released on Monday: $13 by the end of this year, followed by $41, $82, and $133 before reaching $200. The same report anticipates Bitcoin at $500,000 and Ethereum at $40,000 by the end of 2030.
Kendrick envisions the market value of tokenized assets increasing nearly 12 times to $4 trillion by 2028, up from about $340 billion currently, while assets in DeFi could swell 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by 2030. Given that Chainlink earns fees for data delivery and asset transfers between chains, the bank estimates fees could rise approximately 25 times over this timeframe, with the token price likely mirroring these fee increases.
The report also highlights Chainlink’s strong market position, noting its total value secured exceeds $110 billion, which constitutes roughly 70% of the oracle-dependent value in DeFi globally and over 80% on Ethereum. Notably, Aave V3 alone represents 44% of this secured value.
Wall Street Clients
Kendrick mentioned several significant institutions utilizing Chainlink's services, including Swift, DTCC, Euroclear, JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS, Fidelity, and S&P Global, and anticipates that off-chain clients will increasingly contribute to fee revenues. Tokenized funds and bonds require net asset values, rates, and reserve attestations, making them more data-intensive than traditional crypto assets.
In terms of interoperability, Chainlink currently lags behind LayerZero. The report states that over $7 billion in token value has transitioned from legacy bridges to Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) since a $292 million exploit in April, with quarterly CCIP volumes reaching $4.9 billion in Q2, marking a 353% increase year-over-year. Decrypt noted in May that KelpDAO attributed the exploit to LayerZero and plans to transition to Chainlink, a claim that LayerZero contests.
This report is part of a series on DeFi from Kendrick, all built upon the same 37-fold growth forecast. He previously set targets of $100 for Uniswap and $3,500 for Aave in June, and $60 for Morpho in July. Following the release of the note, UNI saw a significant price increase, while Chainlink's response has been more subdued, with LINK currently priced at $8.25, down 0.8% for the day, according to CoinGecko data.
Among the risks noted in the report are the potential for slower-than-expected scaling of institutional tokenization, the possibility that pilot programs may not transition into regular workflows, competition from specialized providers, and potential technical failures that could undermine confidence.