Amidst the ripple effects of the rsETH theft incident on the DeFi market, Standard Chartered Bank released an intriguing analysis. In light of last month’s major event, the question is how much damage the market was truly dealt.

When approximately $290 million flowed out of KelpDAO and into Aave, a bank run occurred. Deposits decreased by $17 billion—38% of the total. Loans also fell by $5.5 billion, or 31%, so at first glance the market appears to be in total chaos.

However, according to Standard Chartered Bank’s investigation, the damage to the entire DeFi infrastructure was surprisingly limited. Thanks in part to the fact that Aave’s founders invested more than $300 million to respond, the market regained stability relatively quickly.

What this incident highlighted is the structural problem in lending markets that use wrapped, staked, and re-staked assets as collateral: the mismatch between assets and liabilities, and the danger of leverage becoming concentrated in specific assets. These are indeed issues that need improvement.

That said, even so, Standard Chartered Bank does not change its growth forecast for the tokenized risk-weighted assets (RWA) market. If DeFi infrastructure and stablecoin liquidity keep improving, it expects the total market capitalization of RWA to reach $2 trillion by 2028.

In other words, while this black swan event has certainly revealed vulnerabilities in the market, it does not fundamentally change the long-term growth story of this sector. The market will likely mature as it overcomes these challenges.