Standard Chartered Projects Tokenisation to Reach $2 Trillion by 2028

Standard Chartered forecasts that the tokenisation market will experience significant growth, jumping from $35 billion to an estimated $2 trillion by the year 2028. This projection comes amid ongoing developments in decentralised finance (DeFi), particularly the role of stablecoins as crucial infrastructure, facilitating the onchain migration of various real-world assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities.

Geoffrey Kendrick, the global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, notes that with all assets existing on a single ledger, barriers to interaction are minimized. Despite challenges in the DeFi sector, including a major $300 million exploit of the KelpDAO protocol that led to significant losses for the Aave lending platform, Kendrick believes that the foundational growth of tokenisation remains intact. He describes the coordinated response within the DeFi community, where over $300 million was raised to stabilize the ecosystem following the exploit.

Kendrick asserts that the long-term potential for DeFi banking and stablecoin liquidity, which are viewed as the fundamental pillars supporting a burgeoning market for tokenised real-world assets, remains strong. These models are predicated on
composability
—where assets can perform multiple functions simultaneously, enhancing returns without increasing risk.

He elaborates that in traditional finance, using a single asset for various purposes usually requires interacting through multiple intermediaries, thus increasing costs and friction. However, in DeFi, lending protocols allow users to earn while borrowing and liquid staking keeps assets flexible. Kendrick emphasizes that lending platforms are central to the DeFi landscape, comparing their functionality and importance to that of traditional banking.

Overall, as the market undergoes structural improvements and stabilisation efforts continue, the stage is set for an anticipated boom in DeFi lending, contributing to an overall valuation predicted to reach $2 trillion.