Investment bank initiates coverage with 33x upside call as DeFi lending protocol scales
Standard Chartered initiated equity research coverage of Morpho on July 1, assigning a $60 end-2030 price target that implies roughly 33x upside from current levels. The investment bank’s digital assets research team cited the protocol’s dual business model spanning DeFi lending and onchain infrastructure as the foundation for sustained growth.
Morpho was trading at $2.13 at the time of publication, up 13% over the preceding 24 hours. The token had recently benefited from the protocol’s $175 million Series B funding round.
“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,” said Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.
Morpho operates two distinct businesses. Morpho Markets functions as a lending protocol that has grown to roughly one-quarter the size of competing protocol Aave by deposits. Morpho Vaults provides infrastructure for onchain asset management and banking applications, a segment the bank views as critical to long-term upside.
Standard Chartered’s bull case hinges on institutional adoption of tokenized assets and onchain lending. The bank forecasts 37-fold growth in total DeFi assets by the end of 2030, a trajectory it expects Morpho to track as the protocol expands its deposit base and Vaults business attracts institutional capital and traditional financial assets.
The DeFi sector has rebounded sharply over the past year as major financial institutions explored tokenization and onchain lending opportunities. Standard Chartered’s coverage reflects growing mainstream confidence in the infrastructure layer supporting these activities, with Morpho positioned as a beneficiary of both the lending and infrastructure trends.
CEO Paul Frambot and Morpho Labs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the coverage initiation.
