Standard Chartered Sees Arbitrum Outperforming Bitcoin by 2030

Standard Chartered’s latest outlook places Arbitrum in a rare category: a layer-2 network the bank believes could outperform Bitcoin and Ether over the next five years. The thesis rests on tokenization, lower transaction costs and the possibility that major financial platforms will increasingly route activity through Arbitrum’s infrastructure.

The bank pointed to Robinhood Chain as an early signal that tokenization is moving from concept to implementation. If more assets, trading venues and financial products migrate on-chain, Arbitrum could benefit from higher network usage and a stronger claim on the economics of settlement and execution.

That view gives ARB a different investment profile from Bitcoin, which remains the dominant macro asset in crypto, and Ether, which continues to anchor much of the smart contract economy. Standard Chartered’s argument is not that Arbitrum replaces either asset, but that it may capture a larger share of value creation if tokenized markets scale as expected.

For investors, the key question is whether tokenization becomes a meaningful driver of blockchain demand before 2030. If adoption broadens across brokerages, exchanges and asset managers, layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum could see a material increase in throughput and fee generation. If adoption stalls, the bullish case weakens quickly.

ARB also faces execution risk. Competition among scaling networks remains intense, and token value will depend on whether Arbitrum can sustain developer activity, user growth and institutional relevance. The bank’s forecast suggests that the market may be underpricing that optionality, but the path to outperformance is still contingent on adoption.