Standard Chartered Bank estimates that the market value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, could grow from about $35 billion today to nearly $2 trillion by 2028.
Standard Chartered estimates token market to reach $2 trillion by 2028
Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, expects the real-world asset (RWA) market, excluding stablecoins, to reach $2 trillion by 2028, according to a note on Thursday.
The projected increase would be more than the current roughly $35 billion, which would put it on par with the firm’s forecast for the stablecoin market.
The bank noted that decentralized finance (DeFi) is rapidly evolving as a viable alternative to traditional financial systems that rely on centralized intermediaries such as banks.
“Stablecoins have laid the groundwork (through awareness, liquidity and lending/lending on chain) for other asset classes from tokenized MMFs. [money market funds] For tokenized equity, to move forward on-chain in a big way,” Kendrick said.
Kendrick believes the majority of this growth will occur on Ethereum, emphasizing the proven stability of the network. He highlighted that Ethereum has operated for over a decade without a single mainnet outage, and said that factors like speed or low costs on competing blockchains are “irrelevant” compared to Ethereum’s reliability and track record.
Standard Chartered estimates that tokenized money-market funds and listed equities could each represent about $750 billion of the estimated $2 trillion market, while funds, private equity, commodities, corporate debt and real estate will make up the remaining share.
Kendrick said the surge in stablecoin adoption in 2025 has transformed DeFi from a niche sector into a mainstream financial ecosystem, empowering non-bank entities to manage payments and savings traditionally handled by banks.
He highlighted lending and RWA tokenization as two areas where DeFi protocols have the greatest potential to challenge and reshape traditional finance.
The report notes that the increasing use of stablecoins in developed markets has boosted on-chain liquidity, leading to new innovation in DeFi services such as lending and borrowing.
“Stablecoins have created many of the necessary preconditions for the widespread expansion of DeFi through the three pillars of increased public awareness, on-chain liquidity, and on-chain lending/lending activity in a fiat-pegged product,” Kendrick said.
Despite its optimistic outlook, Standard Chartered warns of potential risks, especially if the United States fails to establish clear regulatory guidelines before the 2026 midterm elections. However, he says that such incident is not his base case.
