Standard Chartered Forecasts Arbitrum (ARB) Price to Hit $10 by 2030

Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of the Layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum with a highly bullish long-term forecast, predicting its native ARB token could surge to $10 by the end of 2030. The projection, detailed in a new research note, represents a roughly 70-fold increase from the token's price of approximately $0.14 at the time of the report.

The 'TradFi' Thesis

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital assets research, described Arbitrum as "the blockchain for TradFi," or traditional finance. The bank's core thesis is that Arbitrum is uniquely positioned to benefit from the rapid growth of tokenized real-world assets.

Standard Chartered forecasts the market for tokenized assets will expand to $4 trillion by the end of 2028, up from around $340 billion today. The bank highlighted Arbitrum's business model, where it earns a rolling fee of 10% of net protocol revenue when other projects build on its technology stack. The recently launched Robinhood Chain, built on Arbitrum, was cited as a prime example of this model's potential.

Market Position and Valuation

According to the note, Arbitrum is one of the two dominant Layer 2 networks alongside Base. The success of the Robinhood Chain, which the bank called the fastest-growing chain on record by value locked, is expected to generate significant revenue for Arbitrum.

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Kendrick argued that markets currently assign little value to Arbitrum relative to Layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana, despite what he sees as similar economics. The bank expects this valuation gap to close over time, forecasting an interim price target of $0.50 for ARB by the end of 2026.

Potential Risks

Despite the optimistic outlook, the report acknowledged several risks to its forecast. These potential headwinds include:

• Slower-than-expected adoption of asset tokenization.
• Heightened competition from rival blockchain networks.
• The fact that the ARB token currently has no direct mechanism to accrue value, though the report suggested a buyback program could be implemented as the ecosystem matures.