Author: Jae, PANews

A research report from a traditional bank has ignited the somewhat dormant DeFi sector.

On June 15, Geoff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered Bank, released his first coverage report on the DEX (decentralized exchange) Uniswap and gave an aggressive prediction that caught the attention of the crypto market: the price of Uniswap's governance token UNI will surge by about 40 times by the end of 2030, reaching the $100 mark.

At that time, UNI was trading for only about $2.60.

UNI, once ridiculed as an "air-governing coin," is being revalued by Wall Street as a productive asset with network effects. While the 40x long-term narrative is enticing, the journey to the end may not be smooth sailing.

UNI's 40x Growth: A Wall Street Script - Four Numbers, One Main Theme

In Standard Chartered's deconstruction logic, Uniswap is being embedded in a valuation framework that deeply integrates traditional finance with the on-chain world.

RWA tokenization leads to exponential growth (from 340 billion to 4 trillion).

The starting point for this growth is the wave of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) going on-chain. Standard Chartered Bank predicts that the global scale of tokenized assets on-chain will experience exponential growth, soaring from the current approximately $340 billion to $4 trillion by the end of 2028. Asset management giants such as Fidelity and BlackRock are moving traditional assets such as stocks, government bonds, and money market funds onto the blockchain in large quantities, and the liquidity of tokenized assets on-chain will expand at a rate far exceeding industry expectations.

This is equivalent to building a larger reservoir for the DeFi sector: the asset scale is built up first, so that subsequent financial activities such as trading, lending, and staking can have enough assets to support them.

The surge in DeFi penetration (from 3.5% to 30%) has driven up TVL (by 37 times).

Putting assets on the blockchain is only the first step; stagnant water must be transformed into flowing water. Simply put, only when assets circulate within DeFi protocols can they be converted into revenue and value for those protocols. Standard Chartered Bank predicts that currently only about 3.5% of tokenized assets are invested in the DeFi ecosystem, and this proportion will increase to 30% by 2030.

Driven by the growth of native crypto assets and the integration of RWA into the blockchain, the total value locked (TVL) of DeFi is expected to surge 37 times from its current level to approximately $2.7 trillion by 2030.

The cost switch provides price support (40x).

Uniswap, as the main hub for on-chain liquidity, will be the biggest beneficiary of this influx of funds, with its token UNI expected to rise from $2.6 to $100, a nearly 40-fold increase.

Standard Chartered Bank's long-term price path for UNI is: $6.50 at the end of 2026 → $20 at the end of 2027 → $40 at the end of 2028 → $65 at the end of 2029 → $100 at the end of 2030.

In the past, UNI was ridiculed as an "air coin" because it only had governance rights and no ability to capture cash flow. At the end of last year, Uniswap activated its fee switch, and UNI officially entered the deflationary era.

The research report points out that Uniswap burned 100 million UNI tokens in one go on December 28th last year, and an additional 5 million UNI tokens, reducing the total supply from 1 billion to 895 million, and the circulating supply to 622 million. This reduction in supply will provide support for the price of UNI.

In addition, Uniswap generated approximately $21 million in protocol fees. The linear relationship between fees and trading volume means that as tokenized assets flood the protocol, the fee switch will automatically trigger more asset burns. This implies that UNI is transforming from a "pure governance tool" into a "productive asset with deflationary properties," directly narrowing the valuation multiple gap between Uniswap and listed exchanges like Coinbase.

It's worth mentioning that Geoffrey Kendrick also made a vivid business analogy in the report: comparing Uniswap to YouTube and Coinbase to Netflix.

• Coinbase (Netflix model): Centralized operation, heavy asset investment, requires high capital support, listing and compliance require multiple screenings, high marginal cost of expansion, and the types of assets covered are easily limited;

• Uniswap (YouTube model): An open liquidity pool architecture where any user can be a "content creator" (liquidity provider). The platform does not incur high costs for listing assets. In scenarios such as stablecoin trading, liquidity-staking derivatives, and niche tokens, the network effects and long-tail advantages of this open model are difficult for centralized exchanges (CEXs) to match.

This mutually beneficial effect of increasing popularity with continued use is precisely the moat that allows Uniswap to maintain its leading position for so long.

More importantly, Standard Chartered believes that Uniswap is not simply a "retail DEX application," but rather an integrable market infrastructure. Once RWA scales up, traditional financial institutions can directly "insert" their assets into Uniswap's liquidity pools for trading. This is a function that traditional financial markets themselves cannot achieve.

Uniswap has become the preferred interface for traditional funds, but it is being squeezed by emerging DEXs and aggregators.

Wall Street's long-term outlook is enticing enough, but back in the real crypto market, Uniswap's actual situation is not as smooth as the linear growth described in research reports.

Since its founding in 2018, Uniswap has accumulated a total transaction volume of over $3.7 trillion, total fees of $5.6 billion, and a TVL of approximately $2.88 billion.

In terms of market share, Uniswap's reign as the DEX leader remains secure. Whether on the Ethereum mainnet or in various L2 ecosystems, Uniswap dominates in trading volume and liquidity depth, with no competitor posing a substantial threat.

More important signals come from the institutional side. In February of this year, BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL announced the listing of UniswapX for trading and strategically purchased UNI tokens. With the popularization of UniswapX, by introducing features such as off-chain routing, gas-free trading, and resistance to MEV (miner extractable value), it has significantly narrowed the experience gap between DEX and CEX, becoming the preferred entry point for traditional funds to go on-chain.

Coincidentally, last Friday (June 12), Fidelity also deployed the liquidity of its stablecoin FIDD on Uniswap. The protocol's centralized liquidity model is currently the most efficient on-chain pricing mechanism. Once compliant RWA assets are massively deployed on-chain, Uniswap is expected to become the on-chain "NYSE," gaining control over asset pricing.

Wall Street's resources are flowing onto the blockchain. And Uniswap is the tap. Wall Street institutions are using Uniswap as an on-chain interface for compliant assets, and UNI is also moving towards a pricing logic based on "on-chain routing infrastructure."

While the $100 goal seems incredibly tempting, two major obstacles still stand in Uniswap's path to the top, potentially causing this long-term promise to be significantly delayed or even dashed.

• Traffic hijacking by emerging DEXs and aggregators (competitive risk): Solana-based DEXs such as Jupiter and Raydium, with their meme craze and extremely low transaction costs, have eroded a massive amount of retail investor traffic. Meanwhile, aggregators like 1inch and CowSwap intercept users at the front end, reducing Uniswap to a mere "back-end liquidity pool" in some ecosystems, continuously eroding its brand premium and user perception.

• Delayed implementation of tokenization (macroeconomic risk): Standard Chartered's valuation is highly dependent on the assumption that "DeFi TVL will reach $2.7 trillion by 2030." If global legislation on tokenization falls short of expectations, or if large-scale security incidents or systemic risks occur, the penetration rate of RWA will slow down significantly, and the realization of this grand narrative may be severely delayed.

Looking at the most intuitive price aspect, UNI is currently trading at less than $3, down more than 92% from its all-time high in May 2021.

The fee switch brought deflation but not a price reversal. Market indifference to the DeFi narrative, liquidity depletion, and high macroeconomic interest rates have all put significant pressure on UNI's valuation.

However, this may be the source of Standard Chartered's view of "40x potential": starting from a low base.

Standard Chartered Bank's initiation of coverage on UNI with a $100 price target carries more of a bellwether significance than the price itself. In reality, the accuracy of the prediction is less important than the shift in Wall Street's perception of DeFi: from early perceptions of "wild growth and speculative bubbles" to a more rational business assessment of "capital efficiency, network effects, and cash flow value."

It should be noted that Wall Street research reports often focus on macroeconomic logic but are short on microeconomic risks. For investors in the market, the ultimate goal of 40 times earnings is certainly tempting, but the road to 2030 is destined to be fraught with difficulties.

Whether UNI can truly capitalize on the $4 trillion tokenization dividend depends on how well it navigates the complex relationship between decentralized principles and real-world global regulatory compliance.

Compared to the 40-fold increase, the 4-year wait is what truly tests one's faith.