A recent $292 million hack on April 18 has not deterred the growth of decentralized finance, with Standard Chartered describing it as 'bent, not broken'. The exploit, which started with KelpDAO and spread to AAVE, the largest DeFi lender, led to a sharp decline in liquidity, with deposits and active loans plummeting by 38% and 31%, respectively. Despite this, the bank remains optimistic about the sector's future, predicting that tokenized real-world assets will reach a market cap of $2 trillion by 2028.
The hack has accelerated the need for structural upgrades, with AAVE's V4 upgrade and the upcoming Ethereum Economic Zone aiming to reduce reliance on cross-chain bridges, a common target for hackers. Standard Chartered's head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, noted that 'tokenised real-world assets will reach a market cap of $2 trillion by end-2028, up from $35 billion in October 2025'. The incident has also led to a coalition of DeFi firms committing over $300 million to stabilize the system, which has helped normalize conditions and recover deposits.