Standard Chartered starts Aave coverage with $3,500 end-2030 target

Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Aave with a $3,500 end-2030 price target for AAVE, implying roughly 50x upside from about $74. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, framed Aave as a core DeFi recovery and growth trade, arguing the lending protocol stands to benefit from rising onchain real-world assets, expanding stablecoin supply and structural upgrades including V4 and GHO. The note places the April 18 KelpDAO exploit at the center of Aave’s recent drawdown but treats the disruption as a trough rather than a lasting impairment. Deposits fell to $23 billion from $44 billion after the incident, active loans dropped to $9.5 billion from $18 billion, and Aave’s share of the lending market weakened. Standard Chartered said modest improvement since early June and a planned new risk framework signaled stabilization. Kendrick’s thesis rests on Aave’s lending model, where deposits drive loans, loans drive fee income and fee income supports market value. The bank said 90% of fees came from net interest margin over the last 12 months, about 15% of total fees accrue to the protocol as revenue, and the paused AAVE buyback program could add support if resumed. Standard Chartered also sees Horizon, Aave’s permissioned market for tokenized RWAs, as a key long-term driver despite slow initial adoption, while GHO offers a higher-margin growth avenue because its fees flow directly to the protocol.