Uniswap's UNI token could rise 40x from its current price of about $2.70 to $100 by the end of 2030 as tokenized assets increasingly move into decentralized finance, according to Standard Chartered Bank.
The bank initiated coverage of Uniswap, a decentralized exchange protocol, on Monday, saying that the value of tokenized assets active in DeFi is expected to grow 37x between now and the end of 2030 and that Uniswap is well-positioned to benefit from that growth.
"I think the next opportunity for generational wealth in digital assets is going to come via the DeFi protocols," said Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered Bank.
Kendrick expects tokenized assets onchain to grow from about $340 billion today to $4 trillion by the end of 2028, with the share used in DeFi rising from 3.5% to 30% by the end of 2030. Together with growth in crypto-native assets, that would increase assets locked in DeFi to about $2.7 trillion, or 37x current levels. According to Kendrick, Uniswap is poised to benefit because its liquidity pools would have roughly 37x more assets available for trading.
If Uniswap can commercialise enough and create significant enough TradFi partnerships to scale, its market cap-to-transaction fees multiple is likely to increase, narrowing the gap with Coinbase (the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange). We think this is feasible," Kendrick said.
He forecasts UNI at $6.50 by the end of 2026, $20 by the end of 2027, $40 by the end of 2028, $65 by the end of 2029, and $100 by the end of 2030. Kendrick also expects
Kendrick compares Uniswap with Coinbase by saying Uniswap is like YouTube, while Coinbase is like Netflix. Just as YouTube provides an open platform where users create content, Uniswap provides infrastructure where anyone can create liquidity pools and trade tokens. Coinbase, by contrast, operates a centralized exchange and manages its own trading infrastructure.
Kendrick said this model gives Uniswap lower capital requirements because liquidity is supplied by users rather than the platform itself. It also gives Uniswap an advantage in trading highly similar assets, such as stablecoins or staked ether tokens, and in listing smaller or niche tokens that may not generate enough volume for centralized exchanges. Kendrick also expects tokenized real-world assets to become another area where Uniswap and Coinbase compete for users and trading activity.
Kendrick also highlighted recent changes to Uniswap's fee model. Before December 2025, all token swap fees went to liquidity providers. A December 2025 upgrade called UNIfication activated protocol fees and introduced programmatic UNI token burns, with later governance votes expanding fee coverage to more liquidity pools.
Since the fee switch was introduced, Uniswap has generated about $21 million in protocol fees and burned another 5 million UNI tokens, equal to an annual burn rate of about 1%, Kendrick noted. He said that, together with a one-time burn of 100 million UNI, the total token supply has fallen from 1 billion to 895 million, while the circulating supply has dropped to 622 million.
Kendrick also outlined several risks. Smaller decentralized exchanges could build better products for specific use cases, while capturing tokenized real-world asset volume will require stronger commercialization efforts and partnerships with traditional financial institutions. He added that clearer regulation, including the expected passage of the U.S. Clarity Act or future Securities and Exchange Commission guidance, could help address some of those challenges. Kendrick also noted that Uniswap V4's hook system has not yet been tested at the scale he expects by 2030.