华尔街重估DeFi：渣打研报为何押注UNI四年40倍？

Original author: Jae, PANews

A research report from a traditional bank has ignited the somewhat subdued DeFi sector.

On June 15, Geoff Kendrick, Head of Global Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered Bank, published his first coverage report on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap. In it, he made a bold forecast that caught the attention of the crypto market: the price of Uniswap's governance token, UNI, could surge approximately 40 times by the end of 2030, hitting the $100 milestone.

At the time, UNI was trading at just around $2.6.

Once dismissed as a "governance token for the sake of it," UNI is being repriced by Wall Street as a productive asset with network effects. While the 40x forward narrative is enticing, the journey to the finish line may not be a smooth one.

Wall Street's Script for UNI's 40x Growth: Four Numbers, One Main Theme

In Standard Chartered's framework, Uniswap is being integrated into a valuation model driven by the deep convergence of traditional finance and the on-chain world.

RWA Tokenization Exponential Expansion ($340B → $4T)

The starting point is the wave of Real World Assets (RWA) coming on-chain. Standard Chartered predicts that the global scale of tokenized on-chain assets will grow exponentially, from the current approximately $340 billion to $4 trillion by the end of 2028. Asset management giants like Fidelity and BlackRock are moving traditional assets—stocks, treasuries, money market funds—onto blockchains en masse. The liquidity of tokenized on-chain assets will expand much faster than the industry anticipates.

This effectively builds a larger reservoir for the DeFi track: asset scale must be established first to provide sufficient underlying assets for subsequent financial activities like trading, lending, and staking.

DeFi Penetration Rate (3.5% → 30%) Drives TVL (37x)

Asset tokenization is just the first step; stagnant assets need to become active. Simply put, assets must flow into DeFi protocols to be converted into protocol revenue and value. Standard Chartered estimates that currently only about 3.5% of tokenized assets are deployed in the DeFi ecosystem. This ratio is projected to increase to 30% by 2030.

Driven by both the growth of native crypto assets and the influx of RWAs, total DeFi TVL (Total Value Locked) is expected to surge 37 times from current levels, reaching approximately $2.7 trillion by 2030.

Fee Switch Provides Price Support (40x)

As the on-chain liquidity hub, Uniswap will be the biggest beneficiary of this capital flood. Its token, UNI, is expected to see a nearly 40x price increase, rising from $2.6 to $100.

Standard Chartered outlines UNI's long-term price trajectory as: $6.5 by end-2026 → $20 by end-2027 → $40 by end-2028 → $65 by end-2029 → $100 by end-2030.

Historically, UNI was derided as an "air coin" because it only granted governance rights without capturing cash flow. Late last year, Uniswap activated the fee switch, officially ushering UNI into a deflationary era.

The report notes that Uniswap burned 100 million UNI in a single transaction on December 28 last year, plus an additional 5 million UNI. The total supply has thus decreased from 1 billion to 895 million, and the circulating supply has dropped to 622 million. This supply contraction provides support for UNI's price.

Additionally, Uniswap has generated approximately $21 million in protocol fees. The linear relationship between fees and trading volume means that as tokenized assets flow into the protocol, the fee switch will automatically trigger more token burns. This means UNI is transforming from a "pure governance tool" into a "productive asset with deflationary properties," directly narrowing the valuation multiple gap between Uniswap and listed exchanges like Coinbase.

Worth noting, Geoffrey Kendrick also drew a vivid business analogy in the report, comparing Uniswap to YouTube and Coinbase to Netflix.

• Coinbase (Netflix Model): Centralized operations, asset-heavy, requiring significant capital support. Listing assets and compliance involve rigorous screening. Expansion marginal costs are high, and the range of asset coverage is easily limited.
• Uniswap (YouTube Model): An open liquidity pool architecture where any user can be a "content creator" (liquidity provider). The platform doesn't incur high costs for asset listings. In scenarios like stablecoin trading, liquid staking derivatives, and niche tokens, this open model's network effects and long-tail advantages are difficult for centralized exchanges (CEXs) to match.

This self-reinforcing two-sided effect is the moat allowing Uniswap to maintain its dominant position long-term.

More importantly, Standard Chartered believes Uniswap is not merely a simple "retail DEX application." Its essence is an integrable market infrastructure. Once the scale of RWAs expands, traditional financial institutions can directly "plug" their assets into Uniswap's liquidity pools for trading—a capability that traditional financial markets themselves cannot offer.

Uniswap Becomes the Preferred Interface for Traditional Capital but Faces a Pincer Attack from New DEXs and Aggregators

Wall Street's forward-looking filter is compelling, but returning to the actual crypto market, Uniswap's real situation is not as linear as the report suggests.

Since its inception in 2018, Uniswap has processed cumulative trading volume exceeding $3.7 trillion, generated cumulative fees of $5.6 billion, and holds a TVL of approximately $2.88 billion.

From a market share perspective, Uniswap's DEX throne remains solid. Whether on the Ethereum mainnet or across major L2 ecosystems, Uniswap commands dominant trading volume and liquidity depth, with no competitor posing a substantial threat.

A more significant signal comes from the institutional side. In February this year, BlackRock's tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, announced it would offer trading via UniswapX and strategically purchased UNI tokens. With the adoption of UniswapX, which features off-chain routing, gasless trading, and anti-MEV (Miner Extractable Value) properties, the experience gap between DEXs and CEXs has narrowed considerably, making it the preferred entry point for traditional capital coming on-chain.

Similarly, last Friday (June 12), Fidelity deployed its stablecoin FIDD's liquidity onto Uniswap. The protocol's concentrated liquidity model is currently the most efficient on-chain pricing mechanism. Once compliant RWAs are widely issued on-chain, Uniswap could become the on-chain "New York Stock Exchange," controlling the pricing power of these assets.

Wall Street's capital is flowing on-chain. And Uniswap is the tap. Wall Street institutions are positioning Uniswap as the on-chain interface for compliant assets, aligning UNI's valuation logic closer to that of an "on-chain routing infrastructure."

While the $100 endpoint is enticing, two major hurdles stand in Uniswap's path to the summit, potentially delaying or even derailing this long-term projection.

• Traffic Hijacking by New DEXs and Aggregators (Competition Risk): Solana-based DEXs like Jupiter and Raydium, fueled by the Meme coin craze and extremely low transaction costs, have captured massive retail traffic. Meanwhile, aggregators like 1inch and CowSwap intercept users at the front end, reducing Uniswap to a mere "back-end liquidity pool" in some ecosystems, continuously eroding its brand premium and user mindshare.
• Delays in Tokenization Adoption (Macro Risk): Standard Chartered's valuation heavily relies on the assumption that "DeFi TVL will reach $2.7 trillion by 2030." If global legislative progress on tokenization falls short of expectations, or if major security incidents or systemic risks occur, the penetration rate of RWAs will slow significantly, potentially severely postponing the realization of this grand narrative.

Returning to the most direct price perspective, UNI currently trades below $3, down over 92% from its all-time high in May 2021.

The fee switch brought deflation but not a price reversal. The market's冷淡 towards the DeFi narrative, dried-up liquidity, and persistently high macro interest rates are all weighing heavily on UNI's valuation.

Perhaps this is exactly the source of the "40x potential" in Standard Chartered's view: starting from a low base.

Standard Chartered's first coverage of UNI with a $100 price target is more significant as a bellwether than for the price prediction itself. The accuracy of the prediction isn't the point. What matters is the shift in Wall Street's perception of DeFi: from the early "reckless growth and speculative bubble" to a rational business judgment focused on "capital efficiency, network effects, and cash flow value."

It must be noted that Wall Street reports often excel at macro-level logic but fall short on micro-level risks. For investors navigating this space, the 40x endpoint is certainly alluring, but the road to 2030 is bound to be fraught with challenges.

Whether UNI can truly capitalize on the $4 trillion tokenization dividend depends on how skillfully it dances the difficult duo between decentralization principles and global regulatory compliance in the real world.

More than the 40x increase, the 4-year wait is the true test of conviction.