Standard Chartered (LON: STAN) has opened coverage of Sky, the DeFi protocol formerly known as MakerDAO, with a long-dated bullish view on its governance token. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, put an end-2028 target of $0.325 on SKY—about five times the roughly $0.065 level used in the 11 September 2026 note.
Kendrick called Sky “DeFi’s federal bank.”
The protocol issues dollar-linked coins such as USDS and DAI, sets governance rules for agents, and lends at a wholesale rate.
Agents resemble commercial banks: they borrow USDS and deploy it into yield strategies. Spark, Grove, and Obex had borrowed about $5.9 billion against combined limits near $17.5 billion.
The forecast is built on value returned to holders, mainly through staking rewards and, to a lesser extent, buybacks.
Kendrick estimated that stream could grow fivefold by late 2028 if the Sky ecosystem and outstanding USDS expand.
All else equal, he said, that should lift the token by a similar multiple.
Sky is already the third-largest stablecoin issuer after Tether and Circle and the largest issuer of yield-bearing stablecoins. sUSDS has drawn about $4.5 billion in total value locked and recently paid near 3.6 percent.
More than $5.5 billion of agent capital has been placed in strategies involving firms such as BlackRock and Janus Henderson.
Kendrick split the path into two stages.
First, a larger surplus buffer could let Sky send more of existing income to holders; he suggested that pass-through could at least double over the next year.
Second, unused agent capacity could raise protocol income two to three times if spreads hold.
Combined, that supports a four-to-six-times rise in value accruing to SKY holders, with five times as the working figure.
The model also assumes staking yields stay near 4.2 percent.
The call sits inside Standard Chartered’s wider crypto map, including ether at $18,000 and bitcoin at $300,000 by end-2028.
On that basis, SKY is expected to track ether and outperform bitcoin.
Intermediate marks cited from the note include about $0.08 by end-2026 and $0.18 in 2027.
The main risk, the bank said, is slower growth in yield-bearing stablecoins than assumed.
Agents may not fill their limits, spreads may compress, and governance still decides how much surplus goes to stakers versus reserves.
Broader stablecoin growth toward a possible $2 trillion market by 2028 would help, but the yield-bearing share is uncertain.
Whether or not SKY actually manages to reach the $0.325 mark (or higher) depends on USDS scale, agent utilization, and how consistently surplus is shared with holders. Additionally, there could be other contributing factors such as the potential emergence of similar DeFi focused initiatives or arguably better versions that could continue to gain market share in 2028 and beyond.