Geoff Kendrick calls Sky “DeFi’s federal bank” and forecasts a five-fold rise in the value the protocol passes to token holders by end-2028. The thesis runs on USDS supply growth.
Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Sky’s SKY governance token on Friday with a forecast that it reaches $0.325 by the end of 2028, about five times its current price, in a note from the bank’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick.
SKY traded at $0.06 on Friday, gaining 2.4% on the day, and up 11% over 30 days, for a market value of $1.4 billion, per CoinGecko. The note cites a starting price of $0.065. Kendrick’s 2026 and 2027 marks are $0.080 and $0.180.
“We estimate that the value Sky passes on to SKY token holders will increase 5x by end-2028 from today’s level, driven by growth in both the Sky ecosystem and USDS outstanding,” the note says. “All other things being equal, this should drive a 5x rise in the SKY price.”
The Federal Bank Analogy
“The Sky ecosystem is akin to a federal bank – it issues money (stablecoins), creates a governance framework and charges a wholesale rate of interest to borrowers,” the note says. Kendrick lists three revenue lines: net interest income supported by agent borrowing, peg stability module yield on USDC, and crypto-backed vaults.
The growth mechanism is Sky’s agents, which the note describes as “decentralised capital allocators that act as on-chain fund managers, borrowing USDS to deploy across various yield strategies and competing for returns.” Sky describes them as “independent capital allocators that access USDS liquidity from Sky Protocol under governance-set risk parameters.”
The note says agents have borrowed $5.9 billion since the model was established in September 2024, and calls the arrangement “essentially a way to outsource growth of the ecosystem.”
Sky’s own June financial update put total deployments by its Prime Agents above $5.5 billion, with the largest allocations to Janus Henderson at $1.24 billion, BlackRock’s BUIDL at $713 million and Anchorage at $260 million. Sky’s public pages name Spark and Grove as agents without publishing a combined borrowing total.
Increasing USDS Supply
The note identifies increasing USDS outstanding as “the key to increasing profit over time.” USDS total supply on Ethereum stands at 6.62 billion, according to the token contract. Sky reported USDS supply of $10.04 billion in June and $11.14 billion in May.
Sky’s Q4 2025 update projected USDS supply of $20.6 billion for 2026, a 124% year-on-year increase, after closing 2025 at $9.2 billion. The note identifies its own main risk in the same terms: “The main risk to this view would be if yield-bearing stablecoin growth is slower than expected.”
USDS ranks third among stablecoins at $6.66 billion, behind Tether’s $183.38 billion and Circle’s USDC at $74.38 billion, per DefiLlama. Sky also issues DAI, at $4.79 billion. The note describes Sky as the third-largest stablecoin issuer and the largest issuer of yield-bearing stablecoins; the nearest yield-bearing competitor on that list is Ethena’s USDe at $4.47 billion.
Where The Value Lands
Sky passes value to token holders through staking rewards and token buybacks. The protocol collected $27.2 million in fees over the past 30 days and $13.45 million in revenue, of which $3.36 million went to holders, per DefiLlama. Sky’s annualized fees are at $400.73 million and annualized revenue is at $214.41 million, DeFiLlama shows. Sky holds $5.58 billion in total value locked.
Sky bought back 18.6 million SKY over a trailing 30-day period and has deployed $120 million cumulatively into buybacks since the program launched in February 2025, according to its June update. The same update reported Q2 gross protocol revenue of $107.35 million and net protocol revenue of $40.09 million, and an annualized gross run-rate of $419.08 million.
“In terms of value pass-through to SKY token holders the next 12 months will see a doubling at least,” Kendrick wrote in the message accompanying the note. “By end-2028 I think this will see the SKY token price increase 5x.”
The Rest Of The Call
The SKY forecast sits inside a set of house numbers that are bullish across the board. Kendrick’s note carries ether at $18,000 and bitcoin at $300,000 by end-2028, against $4,000 and $100,000 for 2026. On those figures SKY gains would keep pace with ether and outperform bitcoin through 2028.
Sky rebranded from MakerDAO in 2024. Standard Chartered’s research disclaimers state the note does not constitute a recommendation or solicitation to any specific client.
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