‘DeFi bent, not broken’: Standard Chartered says rsETH episode won’t derail path to $2T RWA market
Standard Chartered believes the rsETH exploit, while damaging, won't prevent DeFi from reaching a $2T real-world asset market.Summary
Standard Chartered's research head, Geoffrey Kendrick, stated that the recent KelpDAO rsETH exploit, which resulted in a $292 million theft and significant fallout for Aave, has "bent" but not "broken" the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Despite the systemic risks exposed, the industry's response, including a coalition led by Aave founder Stani Kulechov committing over $300 million to restore operations, is seen as a crucial "antifragile moment" for DeFi. The bank argues this crisis is accelerating structural changes, such as the development of Aave V4 and the Ethereum Economic Zone, which aim to reduce reliance on vulnerable bridges. Standard Chartered maintains its forecast of a $2 trillion market cap for tokenized real-world assets by 2028, asserting that the exploit stress-tests rather than derails this outlook, and may even speed up DeFi's maturation.
(Source：The Block)