Behind the Surge of Chainlink: Korean Exchanges and Whales Boosting, Upcoming Upgrade of Staking Mechanism
The rise of LINK may be related to factors such as the Korean exchange, whale purchases, and the release of major products.Author: Nancy, PANews
Recently, the price of the leading oracle token Chainlink ($LINK) has continued to rise, reaching a yearly high at one point. Meanwhile, the contract open interest for $LINK has rapidly increased, nearly reaching levels seen during the bull market. The rise in $LINK may be related to factors such as Korean exchanges, whale purchases, and significant product launches.
The Rise Driven by Two Major Korean Exchanges and Whale Purchases
According to Coinmarketcap, in the past 24 hours, $LINK has increased by 14.4%, making it the highest-gaining token among the top 100 by market capitalization. Additionally, in terms of spot trading volume, the majority is concentrated on three exchanges: BIKA, Binance, and Topcredit Int, with a total trading volume exceeding $680 million, accounting for approximately 53.5% of the total spot trading volume of $LINK. It is worth noting that the trading volume credibility rating for BIKA and Topcredit Int is average.
Furthermore, Coinglass data shows that in the past 24 hours, the contract open interest for $LINK was $406 million, surpassing the $390 million open interest level during the bull market in January 2022. The contract trading volume for $LINK was approximately $4.02 billion, with an increase of over 41.8%.
On-chain data indicates that the rise in $LINK may benefit from continuous purchases by Korean exchanges and whale addresses. According to Lookonchain data monitoring, the recent price increase of $LINK is significantly related to Bithumb and Upbit; during the price rise, these Korean exchanges accumulated a total of 945,000 $LINK (worth approximately $9 million). In terms of holders, exchanges hold 202.6 million $LINK (accounting for 20.26% of the total supply); holders have staked 37.45 million $LINK (worth $355.8 million).
At the same time, Lookonchain data also shows that the rise in $LINK is somewhat related to whale address purchases. Since September 19, a certain whale has accumulated 11 million $LINK (worth approximately $80.32 million) from Binance; a whale with 38 addresses has been buying $LINK since February this year and currently holds 0.83% of $LINK (worth approximately $79.22 million), with some addresses starting to sell LINK since October. Additionally, a whale purchased 1.25 million $LINK at an average price of $7.58 (worth $9.5 million), which has yielded a profit of $2.1 million at the current price.
Besides the aforementioned whales, some smart money addresses have also profited from the price fluctuations after the rise of $LINK. For example, a whale sold all 38,381 $LINK (worth $346,000) at a price of $9, then borrowed 38,747 $LINK (worth $369,000) from Aave and sold it at a price of $9.5.
Oracle Market Share Approaching Half, Recent Positive News Intensifying
As a leading project in the oracle sector, Chainlink has established a high market barrier. According to official disclosures, since early 2022, Chainlink has surpassed $8 trillion in on-chain transaction value, supporting over 900 decentralized oracle networks and operating on more than 15 chains, many of which have joined the Chainlink SCALE program. Additionally, over 1,700 Web3 projects have integrated its services, covering areas such as DeFi, NFTs, and Gaming.
Moreover, DefiLlama data shows that Chainlink ranks first with over 46.3% market share, far ahead of the second-place WINLink at 24.8% and third-place Chronicle at 17.7%.
In recent months, Chainlink has also intensively released several important products and collaboration announcements, providing solid fundamental support for the rise of $LINK.
In July this year, Chainlink launched the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), aimed at providing smart contract developers with the ability to transfer data and tokens between blockchain networks with minimal trust. This product supports cross-chain transfers between Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Base, and integrates with Synthetix, SushiSwap, Aave, and Australia's institutional bank ANZ.
In August, the global interbank financial telecommunications association Swift announced the completion of cross-chain tokenized asset transfer tests with Chainlink and Citibank, using Chainlink as an enterprise abstraction layer to securely connect the Swift network to the Ethereum Sepolia network, while Chainlink's CCIP achieved full interoperability between the source and target blockchains.
In September, Chainlink announced a preview of the $LINK token economics reform on the X platform, with the caption "Pay with any token, receive LINK tokens," and the accompanying image text as "Universal Gas Token."
In early October, the Smartcon conference organized by Chainlink was held in Barcelona, where significant announcements are expected based on past experiences. On that day, one of Australia's four major banks, ANZ, announced a partnership with Chainlink to apply the cross-chain interoperability protocol CCIP in its stablecoin. In the same month, Chainlink officially launched the one-stop data solution Chainlink Data Streams, aimed at enhancing response speed and user experience.
Recently, Chainlink announced that it will launch Chainlink Staking v0.2 in the fourth quarter of this year, raising the total staking pool cap for $LINK to 45 million tokens, and users can now check their eligibility to participate. This upgrade will focus on providing greater flexibility for stakers through a new unbinding mechanism, enhancing the security of oracle services by reducing rights, achieving seamless upgrades in the future through a modular architecture, and implementing a dynamic reward mechanism (supporting new reward sources in the future). It is important to note that once version 0.2 is officially launched, stakers of version 0.1 will be able to unlock or migrate their staked $LINK and rewards.
From this perspective, the recent significant rise in $LINK can be traced. Although the current price of $LINK has surpassed short-term highs, investors should still conduct thorough research and risk assessment before investing, and the above does not constitute investment advice.
