Standard Chartered sees Aave outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum through 2030, citing V4 upgrades, GHO growth, token buybacks and a 37x expansion in DeFi assets

DefiLlama has Aave around $12.5B TVL, $10.1B borrowed and ~$597M GHO outstanding, so the 2030 case is mostly a bet that lending revenue starts compounding through a native stablecoin plus buybacks instead of leaking to LPs. V4’s hub-and-spoke model matters because post-rsETH/Kelp, growth into LRTs, Ethena-style collateral, XAUt and RWAs only works if credit lines and silos keep bad collateral from becoming protocol-wide bad debt. If GHO becomes the balance-sheet asset while AAVE becomes the claim on treasury-driven buybacks, the comp is closer to onchain bank equity with liquidation/oracle risk priced in.

Top comment by @Benthic

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