Morpho surges as Standard Chartered sees 33x return by 2030

Morpho (MORPHO) rose approximately 5.5% to trade above $2 on Wednesday after Standard Chartered launched coverage with a $60 price target by the end of 2030. The token has gained 11% over the past 24 hours, although it remains nearly 50% below its all-time high, per CoinGecko.

The bank said the protocol is uniquely positioned to benefit from the expansion of tokenized finance through its decentralized lending platform and on-chain infrastructure business.

The bank expects assets on Morpho to grow alongside the DeFi market, which it forecasts will expand 37-fold by the end of the decade.

Combined with the protocol’s strong financial position, the bank believes Morpho has the resources to scale while building deeper relationships with traditional financial institutions entering the tokenized economy.

Morpho Association recently raised $175 million in one of the largest DeFi funding rounds to date, with Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit leading the investment. The round also attracted strategic backing from Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures, VanEck, Ledger Cathay, and a group of institutional and crypto-focused investors.

With over $6.5 billion in total value locked, Morpho currently ranks as the market’s second-largest lending protocol, trailing only Aave in terms of TVL, according to DefiLlama data.

Last week, Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Aave (AAVE) with a $3,500 year-end 2030 price target, forecasting the protocol will capitalize on expanding DeFi adoption and tokenized real-world assets.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.