Standard Chartered: Aave Could Benefit from Tokenized Assets

Standard Chartered has identified Aave as a likely beneficiary as tokenized assets move into decentralized finance, saying active tokenized assets could drive more deposits into the protocol. Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, described Aave as the largest DeFi lending protocol and said he is bullish on its outlook.

The bank noted that Aave’s recent performance was weighed down by a broader decline in digital asset prices and the April cybertheft involving KelpDAO, a $292 million incident that contributed to a fall in the protocol’s lending market share. Kendrick said those negatives are poised to fade and forecast significant upside for digital asset token prices into year-end, adding that Aave has moved beyond the April incident.

Standard Chartered highlighted Aave’s October 2025 deposit base of about $75 billion, saying that scale would sit alongside the 30th-largest US bank by deposits.

United States

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