Traditional investment banks are moving in to price DeFi protocols, and Morpho’s $175 million raise wasn’t for nothing. The twin engines of on-chain banking and asset management are indeed more compelling than a pure lending protocol.

CoinWorld News: Investment bank Standard Chartered has started covering Morpho, describing the lending protocol as a dual play in decentralized finance (DeFi), combining lending markets with on-chain banking and asset management infrastructure. The bank expects a target price of $60 for Morpho by the end of 2030, implying roughly a 33x upside from its current price. This would enable the token to outperform Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) over the same period. At the time of publication, Morpho’s price had risen more than 13% over 24 hours, trading at approximately $2.13. Geoff Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, said in a report on Wednesday: “Given its position as one of the largest DeFi lending protocols, and its comfortable financial position (having just raised $175 million in venture capital),”