Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Chainlink with a price target of $200 by the end of 2030, implying a roughly 25-fold gain from around $8 today and outperformance of both Bitcoin and Ethereum over the period.

Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, laid out staged targets in a note published Monday: $13 by the end of this year, then $41, $82 and $133 before reaching $200. The same note pencils in Bitcoin at $500,000 and Ethereum at $40,000 by end-2030.

Kendrick expects the value of tokenized assets on-chain to climb roughly 12-fold to $4 trillion by end-2028 from about $340 billion now, and assets deployed in DeFi to grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by 2030. Because Chainlink charges for delivering data and moving assets between chains, the bank estimates its fees should rise about 25 times over that period, and assumes the token price follows fees.

Chainlink's incumbency is the other half of the argument. The note puts its total value secured above $110 billion, covering roughly 70% of oracle-dependent value in DeFi globally and more than 80% on Ethereum. Aave V3 alone accounts for 44% of that secured value.

## Wall Street on the client list

Kendrick named Swift, DTCC, Euroclear, JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS, Fidelity and S&P Global among institutions using Chainlink services, and expects off-chain customers to become a growing share of fees. Tokenized funds and bonds need net asset values, rates and reserve attestations, making them more data-hungry than crypto-native assets.

On interoperability, Chainlink still trails LayerZero. The note says more than $7 billion in token value has moved from legacy bridges to Chainlink's CCIP since a $292 million exploit in April, with quarterly CCIP volume reaching $4.9 billion in the second quarter, up 353% year on year. Decrypt reported in May that KelpDAO blamed LayerZero for that exploit and planned to rebuild on Chainlink, a characterization LayerZero disputes.

The note is the latest in a run of DeFi initiations from Kendrick, all built on the same 37-fold forecast. He set targets of $100 for Uniswap and $3,500 for Aave in June, and $60 for Morpho in July. UNI jumped double digits after its note landed. Chainlink’s response has been more muted, with LINK currently trading at $8.25, down 0.8% on the day, per CoinGecko data.

Risks flagged in the note include institutional tokenization scaling more slowly than expected, pilots failing to become recurring production workflows, specialist providers taking share, and technical failures denting confidence.

The bank has now set 2030 targets for Uniswap, Aave, Morpho and Chainlink, all resting on one 37x forecast for DeFi growth.

Standard Chartered Predicts Chainlink to Soar to $200 by 2030, Fueled by $4T Tokenization

It was a quiet, red-tinged day across crypto, and XRP spent it near the bottom of the pile. While the market as a whole has been in a flat, choppy state for the last several weeks, it’s XRP—the cryptocurrency created by the founders of payments company Ripple—that continues to underperform: rising less when others are gaining, and falling harder when others drop.

The reason could be the market's current lack of clarity—or, rather, the delay of the long-awaited **Digital Assets Market Clarity Act**. The Clarity Act, which if passed would create the first formal legal framework for crypto assets in the United States, matters more for XRP than it does more established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The legislation would formally classify XRP as a digital commodity, stripping the regulatory ambiguity that has weighed on institutional demand for years. Traders price that in faster than lawmakers move.

The Senate was unable to vote on the bill before the August recess, dashing what little hope remained that the legislation would be passed this year. However, Majority Leader John Thune did file cloture on the bill late last week, before lawmakers headed out, locking in a procedural vote for September 15. The bill still needs 60 votes to clear the filibuster, and with Democrats holding out, analysts call its 2026 odds a long shot. That's a different picture from late July, when reports that President Donald Trump would accept the bill's stalled ethics provision sent Polymarket odds of passage from 32% to 43% and sparked a broad rally.

The numbers in the crypto charts today show the cool-down. In the top 10 by market cap, XRP was the worst seven-day performer at -4.96%, while Solana gained 3.64% and Bitcoin rose 1.17% over the same stretch. XRP also slipped 1.24% on the day, against a market that was mostly flat. The token is acting like the Clarity trade is being unwound.

## XRP price: What the charts say

XRP is trading at $1.0282, at around a $64 billion market cap, down 0.17% on the day and the weakest of the top 10 over the past week, pinned just above the $1.0128 swing low in a market that still carries a **death cross**—a bearish signal that traders pay close attention to.

![XRP price data. Image: Tradingview](https://img.decrypt.co/insecure/rs:fit:3840:0:0:0/plain/https://cdn.decrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/XRPUSDT_2026-08-10_11-54-31.png@webp)

The trajectory is the story. On the daily chart, XRP has logged lower highs and lower lows for weeks, bleeding from the late-June area near $1.3, down to where it sits now. The July 21 Clarity pop that briefly tagged $1.15 failed and rolled straight back over. That bounce now looks exactly like what bull traps are supposed to look like, not a trend change. Price isn't building a base; it's drifting just above the $1.0128 floor, and a market this trendless can compress longer than most traders expect.

The average price of the last 50 days (EMA50) still sits below the 200-day average (EMA200), in the formation traders call a death cross. Exponential moving averages smooth out average price over a set period; when the shorter-term average trades under the longer-term one, it tells you the medium-term trajectory remains down. Bulls need a daily close back above the EMA cloud to change that reading structurally, and they don't have it. To achieve this, XRP would need to spike at least more than 8%.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, reads 38.2. RSI is a momentum gauge on a 0–100 scale: above 70 is overbought, below 30 is oversold. At 38.2, XRP is below the neutral 50 line and leaning bearish, but not yet in the oversold zone that tends to attract bargain hunters.

The Squeeze Momentum Indicator is off, which means there is still some structure in the bearish trend. With the squeeze inactive and momentum negative, there's no volatility coil loading to fire XRP upward. That's not the signature of a squeeze about to fire upward.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, sits at 14.6. ADX measures trend strength regardless of direction; readings under 20 mark a directionless, choppy tape where false breakouts and stop hunts are common. At 14.6 the trend has no real conviction behind it—though the directional indicators tilt bearish (DI- sits above DI+), which lines up with the death cross rather than fighting it.

The bull case: a daily close back above the Fibonacci resistance at $1.0486 is the first proof buyers are showing up, opening a run at the EMA cloud and then the golden zone at $1.0887–$1.1066. That requires the Clarity Act story to reaccelerate, not just linger.

The bear case: XRP loses the $1.0128 swing low and the round $1.00 figure gives way, which opens a measured move toward the lower-$0.90s. The death cross and the negative Squeeze momentum both point the same way. For now, the path of least resistance does not appear to be up.

The bull case exists, but it's thin. XRP is a Clarity Act proxy trading like the bill's odds just fell to 21%, and the chart underneath agrees.

*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.*

XRP is trading just above $1.00, still pinned under a death cross, as the legislative tailwind that lifted it in July loses steam.

XRP Price Stuck in Death Cross as Clarity Act Hopes Fade: What's Next?

**Michael Saylor** built his fortune and reputation on a single promise: never sell bitcoin. Yet **Strategy** (NASDAQ:MSTR) has now broken that promise multiple times in quick succession. But one specific number buried in its preferred stock data reveals exactly when the selling stops.

## From Bitcoin Treasury to Digital Credit

Saylor no longer describes Strategy as a “bitcoin treasury company.” He’s rebranded the model as a **Digital Credit Framework** — an operating and capital structure built to support debt and preferred-stock obligations using **Bitcoin** (CRYPTO:BTC) as the underlying collateral, rather than simply stockpiling it for shareholders. That distinction matters, because it explains behavior that looks contradictory on the surface: a company famous for buying bitcoin is now selling it to keep other financial obligations current.

The clearest example is Strategy’s preferred stock. The **Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock** (NASDAQ:STRC) dividends are funded through the company’s USD Reserve, and maintaining that reserve has become priority one. Last week, Strategy sold 1,638 bitcoin to raise $104.7 million specifically to bolster that reserve. Building long-term value for Strategy’s common shareholders — once the entire pitch — now reads as secondary to keeping the preferred stock’s dividend obligations funded.

![Infographic: From 'buy and hold forever' to a $11,000 loss per coin—here is the hidden math driving Michael Saylor’s massive strategic pivot.](https://247wallst.com/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/XaQqGmJkNE7OzU_SNXiB6g/247walls-infographic-msm13a9m-0-j4k6/medium)

## The Selling Spree, By the Numbers

On-chain tracker Lookonchain reported that wallets believed to belong to Strategy transferred 1,030 BTC — worth roughly $66.14 million — on Wednesday. Strategy hasn’t confirmed that specific transaction, but the company routinely discloses weekly transactions in Monday filings, so official confirmation is still pending as of this writing.

Here’s what’s rattling crypto markets: Saylor has said publicly that Strategy’s buying pressure is a meaningful reason bitcoin trades as high as it does. Regular selling flips that dynamic, and investors are reasonably asking whether sustained outflows from the market’s largest corporate holder could weigh on price further.

The sales themselves aren’t flattering, either:

| Metric | Figure |
|--------|--------|
| Last week’s average sale price | $63,957 |
| Strategy’s average acquisition cost | $75,419 |
| Implied loss per BTC sold | ~$11,462 (15.2%) |

**Selling below cost basis isn’t a sign of confidence. It’s a sign of necessity.**

## What It Would Take for the Selling to Stop

Here’s the more encouraging data point. The preferred stock’s par value — the benchmark Strategy has tied to resuming bitcoin purchases — bottomed near $70 in June. It closed Friday at $95.18, up 35% from that low, and climbing steadily back toward its $100 par value.

Strategy has indicated it wants STRC back at par before bitcoin buying resumes. Reaching $100 probably won’t flip the switch immediately — the company will likely want to see price stability well above that threshold before committing new capital to Bitcoin again. Granted, that means another disclosed sale next Monday wouldn’t necessarily contradict this thesis. But the trajectory itself — a 35% recovery in roughly two months — is the strongest signal yet that Strategy’s selling pressure has a defined off-ramp, not an open-ended mandate.

## Key Takeaway

Strategy’s bitcoin sales aren’t random — they’re funding a specific obligation (STRC dividends) with a specific resolution condition (STRC returning to par value). That condition is 35% closer to being met than it was in June. Investors watching Strategy for signs the selling has run its course should treat the preferred stock’s climb toward $100 — not any single week’s transaction — as the number that actually matters.

Michael Saylor built his fortune and his reputation on a single promise: never sell bitcoin. Strategy has now broken that promise multiple times in quick succession, but one specific number buried in its preferred stock data reveals exactly when the selling stops.

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