Standard Chartered released its first in-depth research report on Uniswap on June 15, forecasting that its governance token UNI will rally to $100 by the end of 2030 — a roughly 40x gain from its current price around $2.70. According to a report by The Block, the bank set a phased price target: $6.50 by end-2026, $20 in 2027, $40 in 2028, $65 in 2029, and finally $100 by 2030. The analysts expect UNI's returns to outperform both Bitcoin and Ethereum over the period.
Tokenized Assets Seen Expanding to $4 Trillion
The bullish thesis is rooted in the surging demand for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's head of global digital assets research, noted that current on-chain tokenized assets stand at about $340 billion and could explode to $4 trillion by 2028. He estimates the share of these assets deployed into DeFi will rise from 3.5% today to 30% by 2030. Combined with native crypto asset growth, DeFi's total value locked (TVL) could hit a staggering $2.7 trillion — a 37x increase from current levels. Kendrick called DeFi the next "generational wealth opportunity."
Uniswap as YouTube, Coinbase as Netflix
To frame the competitive landscape for traditional investors, Standard Chartered compared Uniswap to YouTube — an open platform where users create liquidity pools and trade freely with minimal capital requirements — and Coinbase to Netflix, a centralized operator managing its own infrastructure. The report argues Uniswap's permissionless architecture is ideal for trading stablecoins, liquid staking derivatives, long-tail tokens, and the coming wave of RWA assets. While Uniswap's real trading volume now rivals Coinbase's, its market cap relative to fee generation is much lower. The bank believes closing this gap is achievable through stronger monetization and deeper ties with traditional finance.
Fee Switch Triggers ~1% Annual Supply Burn
On the tokenomics front, the UNIfication upgrade in December 2025 activated protocol fees and a programmatic burn mechanism. Since then, Uniswap has generated about $21 million in fee revenue and burned roughly 5 million UNI (an annualized deflation rate of ~1%). Combined with the earlier one-time burn of 100 million tokens, total supply has dropped from 1 billion to 895 million, with circulating supply at 622 million. This provides solid support for the token price.
However, Standard Chartered flagged several risks: smaller DEXs could launch superior products in niche areas; Uniswap V4's hook system needs stress-testing under extreme volume; and most critically, U.S. regulatory clarity — including the Clarity Act and SEC guidance — remains the ultimate variable for institutional RWA adoption to materialize on-chain.