Whales buy into Chainlink as LINK token rallies closer to $30

Chainlink (LINK) is revisiting price levels not seen since 2021 as the token inches closer to the $30 mark. Recent on-chain analysis shows increasing whale activity with large wallets getting in at this price level.

Chainlink (LINK) has become attractive to whale buyers as seen on recent on-chain data. In one transaction, a large-scale buyer acquired $4.94M of LINK tokens, at an average price of $28.18. The funds went through an intermediary wallet before landing in a high-balance holder’s wallet that has been active since November.

LINK is now returning to levels not seen since 2021. The token has a unique trajectory, peaking in late 2020 at above $49. Since then, LINK has served as a utility token and has often gone counter to the market.

In late 2024, LINK rallied along with other “dinosaur coins” after the launch of a brief altcoin season. LINK has always had a community of long-term holders, which has set up expectations for new all-time highs.

LINK is one of the few tokens with both a strong appeal as a community and utility through its oracle services. The company continues to expand its portfolio of projects, setting up data for crypto insiders and a selection of TradFi clients. Chainlink secures data for 407 crypto entities, securing $38.33B in value.

LINK is closely watched for its potential to chart at new highs toward the end of 2024 as it inches closer to new all-time highs.

As of December 12, open interest for LINK grew to an all-time high above $656M, with constant growth in the past few days. LINK retains 70% of long positions against an average of 30% for shorts on most leading crypto exchanges.

The recent rise of LINK is also connected to Bybit’s recent breakout. Most LINK volumes have now moved to the rising exchange, with $341.7M in open interest on that market. LINK is also riding additional hype as it already climbed into the top 15 of coins and tokens by market capitalization.

Chainlink gains from oracle service partnerships

The recent rally is also in response to news that Donald Trump’s DeFi venture, World Liberty Financial, is acquiring LINK tokens for its portfolio. World Liberty also acquired ETH and AAVE as part of its attempts to build a DeFi vault. World Liberty holds $1.15M worth of LINK or 41.33K tokens on a widely known public wallet.

World Liberty buys LINK as part of its partnership in using oracle services, going beyond short-term speculation.

Chainlink has different appeal points in its relationshipe with its community and real-world financial entities. Recently, Chainlink became a part of the Digital Asset Board with Emirates NBD. Chainlink will add its expertise to already established board members PwC, Fireblocks, R3 and Chainalysis.

The company with $260B in assets under management will explore Chainlink’s services for increased efficiency. Chainlink continues to test its digital data services and oracle connections to make traditional business processes more efficient.

Chainlink gets boost from cross-chain transfers

Chainlink’s main product in addition to its oracle services is the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). The protocol’s key asset is Circle’s USDC, considered a fully regulated and transparent asset.

Chainlink’s CCIP carries mostly USDC and GHO as part of the Aave and other DeFi ecosystems. | Source: Dune Analytics

More than 90% of the CCIP volumes are for stablecoins, one of the key growth areas of crypto usage. The two most common multi-chain transfers are for USDC and Aave’s GHO stablecoin. Chainlink is one of the main facilitators of the Aave lending vault ecosystem on multiple chains.

CCIP also spread to the Ronin Network, one of the growing platforms for Web3 and gaming. Ronin’s community voted to migrate its cross-chain activity to CCIP and replace its current bridges. The Ronin Network was extremely successful but suffered a setback after one of its main bridges was hacked for upward of $600M.

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