Standard Chartered sets 66x ARB target for 2030, betting on tokenization growth
Geoff Kendrick's note puts ARB at $10 by 2030 from about $0.15, and the Expansion Program revenue behind that call splits 8% to the Arbitrum DAO treasury and 2% to a developer guild. A holder's claim on it runs through what the DAO spends.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Arbitrum's ARB with a $10 target for the end of 2030, and a staircase of $0.50 by end-2026, $1.50 in 2027, $3.50 in 2028 and $6.50 in 2029.
- The revenue behind the call comes from the Arbitrum Expansion Program, under which any chain built with Arbitrum tech that settles outside Arbitrum One or Nova returns 10% of its net protocol revenue.
- The bank forecasts about $5 million of Expansion Program fees for Arbitrum in September, more than five times Arbitrum's monthly revenue before Robinhood Chain existed.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint An ARB holder's interest in the new fee stream is a governance interest: the cash arrives inside a treasury the DAO spends, so the token's link to it runs through votes.
- Who's exposed exposure One brokerage's chain sets the revenue line. Robinhood's own traffic decides whether the September run rate is a floor or a spike, and that decision sits with Robinhood.
- What doesn't add up contradiction The two accounts of the same note start the tokenization base at about $340 billion and at nearly $39 billion, so the growth implied to reach $4 trillion by end-2028 is either about 12-fold or about 103-fold.
- What it sets up precedent Standard Chartered's DeFi initiations now share one assumption: Chainlink at $200 by 2030 and ARB at $10 rest on the same tokenization forecast, so the next name gets priced off it too.
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Robinhood puts $25 million of company capital into bitcoin, about 0.025% of its market valueConfirmed5 publishers
Kendrick's route to $10 skips the step where cash reaches holders. He expects more traditional finance chains on the same stack, more Expansion Program fees, and a re-rating of ARB to layer-1 valuations [10]. On the bank's own numbers bitcoin goes from $100,000 this year to $500,000 in 2030 and ether from $4,000 to $40,000, so 5x and 10x [15]. ARB from Tuesday's $0.15 is 66x [1], about 13 times the bitcoin multiple and 6.7 times the ether one [26]. Cointelegraph's account of the same note quotes $0.14 and calls it roughly 70-fold [12][7]; a cent either way is the difference between 67x and 71x [20].
The near steps are the steepest in percentage terms. Getting to $0.50 by the end of 2026 is 3.3x from $0.15, and the later annual steps fall to 3x, 2.3x, 1.9x and 1.5x [6][24]. ARB gained 86% in the month to Tuesday, according to Coingecko [12]. Two more months like that compound to 3.46x [25].
The revenue is small in absolute terms. Robinhood Chain, which launched on July 1 [8], printed $448,616 of fees on September 14 [18], and that annualises to about $164 million gross, of which Arbitrum's 10% is roughly $16 million and the DAO treasury's 8% about $13 million [27]. Cryptopolitan reported the split running at about $1.32 million over 30 days by early September [19], which is $44,000 a day, or about $16 million a year [28].
The fall from the $6.04 million peak on September 4 [18] leaves the bank's September forecast standing, or at least breaks less of it than the daily prints suggest. Fourteen days at the estimated $2.8 million average [4] is $39.2 million, sixteen more at the September 14 rate adds $7.2 million, and 10% of the $46.4 million total is $4.6 million against a $5 million forecast [5][17]. October is the first month priced entirely at the post-peak rate.
"We see digital assets transitioning from a state where revenue is not yet relevant to one where revenue is critical," Kendrick wrote [21], and he described Arbitrum's model as "heavily focused on revenue" [22]. His own risk list includes ARB capturing little direct value from the fees moving through the network [9]. Kendrick said the biggest risks to the projection are "a slower-than-expected pace of asset tokenization and more competition from alternate blockchains" [13].
The bank's bitcoin target has no fee claim behind it at all and still gets 5x [15], so a missing distribution, on its own, says little about a token price. The 8-and-2 split removes the part of this thesis that could be checked against a receipt. In my view the fee stream works here as evidence that ARB deserves the layer-1 comparison, and the target stands or falls on that comparison. Two things would move me: a DAO vote directing treasury revenue at holders, and a second brokerage chain on the stack. Kendrick expects that second chain [10]. He pointed to the DTCC's work on tokenized equities and the pending Clarity Act as developments still ahead [23].
What to watch
- October Expansion Program fees, the first full month priced at the post-peak Robinhood Chain rate.
- Any Arbitrum DAO vote that routes treasury revenue to ARB holders and away from DAO operations.
- A second traditional finance chain launching on the Arbitrum stack, which Kendrick expects.
Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.
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- [1]
Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Arbitrum's ARB token with a $10 target for end-2030, about 66 times its level near $0.15 on Tuesday.
- [2]
Geoff Kendrick, who runs digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said in a note to clients that ARB should outperform bitcoin and ether over that window.
- [3]
Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, any chain built using Arbitrum tech that settles outside Arbitrum One or Nova returns 10% of its net protocol revenue.
- [4]
Standard Chartered estimates Robinhood Chain's daily fee revenue averaged $2.8 million in the first two weeks of September.
- [5]
Standard Chartered forecasts that Arbitrum will take about $5 million in Expansion Program fees in September at that rate, and said Arbitrum's monthly revenue is now more than five times its level before Robinhood Chain existed.
- [6]
Standard Chartered set out a staircase for ARB of $0.50 by the end of 2026, $1.50 in 2027, $3.50 in 2028, $6.50 in 2029 and $10 in 2030.
- [7]
Cointelegraph reported that $10 by 2030 would represent a roughly 70-fold increase from current levels, far exceeding Standard Chartered's projected returns for bitcoin and ether over the same period.
- [8]
Robinhood Chain, the highlight customer of the Expansion Program, launched on July 1.
- [9]
Standard Chartered flagged its own risks: tokenization could move slower than the model predicts, competing blockchains could take share, and ARB captures little direct value from the fees going through the network.
- [10]
Kendrick anticipates more traditional finance chains on the same stack, raising the likelihood of more fees and, in his view, a re-rating of ARB to layer-1 valuations.
- [11]
Standard Chartered expects the value of assets flowing on-chain to increase to $4 trillion by the end of 2028 from about $340 billion today, with tokenized equities alone expected to be $750 billion.
- [12]
ARB was valued at around $0.14 on Tuesday, having gained 86% over the past month, according to Coingecko.
- [13]
Kendrick said the biggest risks to his ARB price projection include "a slower-than-expected pace of asset tokenization and more competition from alternate blockchains."
- [14]
Kendrick's team started covering Chainlink last month with a 2030 target of $200 and has made similar 2030 calls for Uniswap and other DeFi names, all depending on the same tokenization forecast.
- [15]
Standard Chartered pegs ether at $4,000 this year and $40,000 by 2030, and bitcoin at $100,000 this year and $500,000 by 2030.
- [16]
On September 1, Robinhood Chain users paid $3.75 million in fees, briefly sending the two-month-old network ahead of Ethereum mainnet and Base for the day.
- [17]
Fourteen days at the estimated $2.8 million daily average plus sixteen days at the September 14 rate is about $46.4 million of gross fees for September, and 10% of that is about $4.6 million against the bank's $5 million forecast.
- [18]
Robinhood Chain fees peaked at $6.04 million on September 4 and came to $448,616 on September 14.
- [19]
The Expansion Program's 10% cut is divided into 8% to the Arbitrum DAO treasury and 2% to a developer guild, corresponding to about $1.32 million over 30 days by early September; the money is used to run the DAO and does not automatically go to ARB holders.
- [20]
A $10 target is 67x against a $0.15 price and 71x against $0.14.
- [21]
"We see digital assets transitioning from a state where revenue is not yet relevant to one where revenue is critical," Kendrick wrote.
- [22]
Kendrick said Arbitrum's model is "heavily focused on revenue" and the token should benefit.
- [23]
Kendrick pointed to the DTCC's work on tokenized equities and the pending Clarity Act as positive developments that have not yet landed.
- [24]
The staircase's step multiples decline: $0.15 to $0.50 is 3.3x, then 3x, 2.3x, 1.9x and 1.5x.
- [25]
Two consecutive months of ARB's past-month 86% gain compound to 3.46x.
- [26]
On Standard Chartered's own 2030 numbers bitcoin is a 5x and ether a 10x, against 66x for ARB from $0.15, so the ARB multiple is about 13 times the bitcoin one and 6.7 times the ether one.
- [27]
Robinhood Chain's September 14 fee print annualises to about $164 million gross, of which the Expansion Program's 10% is about $16 million to Arbitrum and the 8% share about $13 million to the DAO treasury.
- [28]
About $1.32 million over 30 days is roughly $44,000 a day and about $16 million a year.
- [29]
The September 14 fee print is about 7% of the September 4 peak, a fall of about 93%.
- [30]
Tokenized real-world assets have reached a cumulative value of nearly $39 billion, according to RWA.xyz data.
- [31]
Reaching $4 trillion from about $340 billion is roughly a 12-fold increase, while reaching it from nearly $39 billion is roughly a 103-fold increase.
Sources
3 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cointelegraph.comStandard Chartered says Arbitrum could outperform Bitcoin, Ether through 2030
1 article · September 15, 2026
- cryptobriefing.comArbitrum’s ARB drops 29% from September peak, Standard Chartered sets $10 target
1 article · September 16, 2026
- cryptopolitan.comStandard Chartered calls ARB to $10 but flags little value reaching token holders
1 article · September 15, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Crypto price targets
- Real-World Asset Tokenization
- Layer-2 Networks