Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK) with a $200 price target by the end of 2030, implying a roughly 25-fold gain from the token’s current price of $8.25.
What Standard Chartered Is Actually Projecting
Global head of digital assets research Geoff Kendrick laid out staged targets in a Monday note cited by The Decrypt, starting at $13 by year-end, then climbing to $41, $82, and $133 before reaching $200 by 2030.
The same note targets Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) at $500,000 and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) at $40,000 over the same period.
The thesis rests on one core forecast: tokenized assets on-chain growing roughly 12-fold to $4 trillion by end-2028, with assets deployed in DeFi expanding 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by 2030.
Because Chainlink charges fees for delivering data and moving assets between chains, Kendrick estimates its fees rise roughly 25 times over that window and assumes the token price follows.
Why Chainlink’s Market Position Matters
The note puts Chainlink’s total value secured above $110 billion, covering roughly 70% of oracle-dependent value in DeFi globally and more than 80% on Ethereum. Aave V3 alone accounts for 44% of that secured value.
Kendrick named Swift, DTCC, JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Mastercard (NYSE:MA), UBS, Fidelity, and S&P Global among institutions already using Chainlink services, with off-chain customers expected to become a growing share of fees as tokenized funds and bonds require more data infrastructure than crypto-native assets.
On interoperability, Chainlink trails LayerZero but is gaining ground.
More than $7 billion in token value has moved from legacy bridges to Chainlink’s CCIP since a $292 million exploit in April, with quarterly CCIP volume hitting $4.9 billion in Q2, up 353% year-on-year.
How This Fits Standard Chartered’s Broader DeFi Coverage
This is the fourth DeFi initiation from Kendrick this summer, all built on the same 37-fold DeFi growth forecast.
He set targets of $100 for Uniswap (CRYPTO: UNI) and $3,500 for Aave (CRYPTO: AAVE) in June, and $60 for Morpho (CRYPTO: MORPHO) in July.
UNI jumped double digits after its note. LINK’s reaction has been more muted, up just 1.53% Monday.
Where Does LINK Stand Technically?
LINK nudges to $8.3 Monday, holding inside a descending triangle compressing since the May peak with the floor at $7.50.
The 20-day and 50-day EMAs cluster just below price at $8.255 and $8.25, the first time price has held above both since May.
RSI at 51.87 sits above 50 with two prior bullish divergences in February and June preceding meaningful bounces.
Key levels for LINK:
- $8.51 — 100-day EMA, short-term breakout trigger
- $7.50 — triangle floor, must hold
- $7 — breakdown target if floor fails
Photo via Shutterstock
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