Standard Chartered: $4T onchain by 2028, DeFi to carry most

Standard Chartered projects $4 trillion in tokenized assets will be onchain by the end of 2028, split evenly between $2 trillion in stablecoins and $2 trillion in tokenized real-world assets. The estimate combines two forecasts from Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research.

Kendrick centers the forecast on composability, a DeFi feature that lets an onchain position perform multiple roles at once. He wrote that composability “makes 1 + 1 = 3,” explaining a single asset can earn yield, serve as collateral and remain liquid at the same time.

The report cites a tokenized U.S. Treasury money-market fund with about $2.85 billion in assets under management as an example. The fund earns Treasury yield, can convert to a DeFi-compatible token, be posted as collateral on lending protocols, trade 24/7 and act as reserve collateral for other tokenized products without requiring direct integrations.

The note states there are roughly 1,000 times more assets offchain than onchain, leaving room for tokenization to expand. It adds that tokenizing institutional-grade assets is the most likely source of the next growth phase and that institutions will move assets onchain with counterparties that show strong risk metrics.

The report points to rising institutional activity on DeFi primitives. At times the largest DeFi lending protocol ranked among the top 40 U.S. banks by assets. Onchain stablecoin lending volumes run about $1.5 billion to $2 billion per day, and average loan sizes have increased. A bitcoin lending product that pairs a major exchange's front end and custody with a DeFi lending engine carries roughly $1.75 billion in loans across about 22,000 borrowers.

Standard Chartered reaffirmed its $2 trillion forecast for tokenized real-world assets in April after a major DeFi exploit and described the sector as “bent, not broken.” Kendrick identified legislative clarity, notably the passage of the Clarity Act, as the most significant near-term event likely to accelerate migration from traditional rails to DeFi. The bank's analysis concludes established DeFi protocols are positioned to capture much of the operational throughput as tokenization scales, while incumbents and institutional players are more likely to integrate with proven onchain infrastructure than build entirely new stacks.