Standard Chartered Sees Arbitrum Surpassing Bitcoin and Ether in Value by 2030

Standard Chartered's digital assets research team sees Arbitrum as one of the top performers in the digital asset industry through 2030. The layer-2 network's economics offer considerable upside, according to Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered. Arbitrum receives 10% of the net protocol revenue generated by companies building on it.

The launch of Robinhood Chain has already changed Arbitrum's economics for the better. At its current run rate, Arbitrum is expected to generate $5 million in revenue in September, more than five times its level before Robinhood Chain launched in July.

Kendrick expects Arbitrum's native ARB token to rise steadily over the coming years, reaching as high as $10 by 2030. This would represent a roughly 70-fold increase from current levels, far exceeding Standard Chartered's projected returns for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) over the same period.

The growth of tokenized real-world assets is a key factor in Standard Chartered's bullish thesis. Tokenized assets have reached a cumulative value of nearly $39 billion, according to RWA.xyz data. The bank sees Arbitrum as a potential beneficiary because it provides the infrastructure for companies to build their own layer-2 networks and receives a share of the revenue they generate.

However, Kendrick notes that there are risks to his ARB price projection, including 'a slower-than-expected pace of asset tokenization and more competition from alternate blockchains'.