$4 Trillion Tokenized Assets by 2028 Could Ignite DeFi Boom, Standard Chartered Says

Lockridge Okoth

Tue, May 19, 2026 at 6:21 AM EDT 2 min read

Standard Chartered's digital assets team forecasts $4 trillion in tokenized assets on-chain by end-2028. Stablecoins and real-world assets (RWA) should each account for half of that pool, with the forecast positioning DeFi as the native back-end for that capital.

The report comes from Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, who argues composability gives leading protocols a structural advantage that traditional finance cannot replicate.

Standard Chartered Pushes Composability as the Multiplier

Kendrick describes composability as the property that lets a single on-chain position earn yield. The same position can simultaneously serve as collateral and remain tradable.

Off-chain, the same exposure requires separate intermediaries and legal agreements. He points to BlackRock's BUIDL fund, with about $2.7 billion in assets, as an example.

The tokenized Treasury product earns roughly 4% in yield and backs stablecoins. It also serves as collateral on lending markets such as Aave.

"Tokenized assets will reach $4T by the end of 2028 (half in stablecoins and half in RWAs). This rapid increase in assets on-chain will require a huge uplift in throughput on DeFi protocols. Well-established DeFi protocols with strong risk metrics and governance should benefit the most. The asset prices of these DeFi protocols will benefit accordingly," Kendrick stated.

In TradFi, the same multi-use profile requires splitting capital across intermediaries and siloed systems.

Standard Chartered estimates the configuration lowers the effective cost of capital meaningfully.

Three Channels for Throughput

The bank identifies three drivers for protocol revenue, with each lever compounding the others:

• More assets move on-chain

• A higher share of those gets deposited into DeFi

• A higher share again is then borrowed against.

Circle's USD Coin (USDC) offers a working example. Its market cap and the share lent across DeFi venues are rising together.

Protocols with conservative risk metrics and professional governance stand to capture most of the inflows.

Catalyst Watch

Kendrick flags the CLARITY Act as the next major trigger for institutional migration into lending rails. Polymarket traders currently price the bill's 2026 passage near 64%.

Standard Chartered estimates around 1,000 times more value sits off-chain than on-chain today.

Established protocols with proven risk frameworks should capture most of the upside. Newer or less audited platforms would carry sharper drawdown risk under institutional scale.

The next test will be whether large institutional treasurers begin parking tokenized funds inside open lending venues at scale.