Standard Chartered Report: Morpho Set to Scale as Core DeFi Infrastructure Layer

Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Morpho with a $60 price target for end-2030, arguing that its DeFi lending and onchain infrastructure businesses are well positioned to benefit from the rise of tokenized assets.

The bank characterized Morpho as a dual-focused DeFi protocol, combining a lending marketplace with infrastructure aimed at onchain banks and institutional asset managers.

It set a $60 end-2030 target for MORPHO, implying roughly 33x upside from current levels and suggesting the token could outperform bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) over the period.

MORPHO was trading more than 13% higher on the day, near $2.13 at the time of publication.

“Given its status as one of the largest DeFi lending protocols and its comfortable financial position (it just raised $175 million in VC funding), we think Morpho can scale to meet the expanding base of assets deployed in DeFi,” wrote Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, in a Wednesday note.

Decentralized finance has strengthened over the past year, supported by rising institutional interest in tokenized real-world assets and increased onchain lending activity. Growth in stablecoin adoption and renewed demand for crypto credit have supported lending markets, while infrastructure providers enabling institutional participation onchain have emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry.

Kendrick noted that Morpho operates through two core units: Morpho Markets, a lending protocol that has expanded to roughly one-quarter the size of Aave by deposits, and Morpho Vaults, which provides infrastructure for onchain asset management and banking use cases.

He said this structure positions Morpho to capture growth as DeFi evolves beyond crypto-native lending into institutional and tokenized asset markets.

Standard Chartered expects assets on Morpho to expand broadly in line with its projection of a 37x increase in total DeFi assets by 2030, supported by the protocol’s strong balance sheet following its $175 million funding round.

The bank added that Morpho’s long-term trajectory will depend on the success of its Vaults segment in attracting institutional capital and traditional financial assets onchain. While deeper integration with traditional finance remains complex, it also represents a significant opportunity as tokenization accelerates.