Over the past 5 days, whales have withdrawn Chainlink (LINK) from Binance and transferred them to custody wallets, with a total value of around $34.1 million, equivalent to 1.37 million LINK. According to data from Etherscan, these withdrawals have been transferred to 30 newly created wallets, with the largest wallet holding over 151,000 LINK, while the smallest withdrawal is around 5,000 LINK.
Although the reasons for these withdrawals are not yet clear, LINK is not only used for speculative trading but also a utility token that can be Staked to generate passive income. Holding LINK in custody wallets also allows users to interact with DeFi applications.
Part of the LINK whale activity may be aimed at buying the dip and capitalizing on short-term volatility. However, despite being held steadily, LINK has not yet broken its previous all-time high and maintains a range-bound pattern within the bear market.
Other use cases may include new Staking modalities, such as liquidity Staking with additional rewards. Some free LINK tokens have been transferred to the Stake.Link priority pool.
Not a stranger to whale activity, LINK is currently attracting attention, and this accumulation phase is seen as a potential sign of an upcoming price surge. A prominent whale, pleven.eth, has used LINK to execute short-term trades, generating over $200,000 in profits.
This whale leverages LINK's deep liquidity, executing buy-the-dip trades and selling when the price rises. The whale's strategy is to use decentralized services to convert between LINK and USDT, profiting from price fluctuations that occur within a day or even a few hours.
Whale activity is primarily focused on spot trading, while the LINK Open Interest (OI)* has declined from its 2024 peak. Long positions currently account for over 75%, which could be at risk of liquidation if the price drops.
LINK continues to trade and accumulate in a higher price range, after temporarily approaching the $30 level. Currently, this asset has not been able to break above that level and has retreated to $24.2. LINK is also more difficult to pump, as only 15% of the total trading activity still takes place on Binance.
LINK is trading at a slightly higher price on Bithumb, equivalent to $25.39. However, not all international traders have the ability to trade in South Korea, making this price arbitrage more challenging.
Chainlink continues to operate as a utility project, avoiding direct promotion of its token. The platform is currently ranked 6th in GitHub updates and has become one of the most actively developed projects.
In recent months, Chainlink has started adding more partnerships to its CCIP cross-chain service. After replacing the Ronin bridge, Chainlink has also taken over the Neiro on Ethereum (NEIRO) and ApusCoin (APU) connections. Although these meme projects are relatively small, they still demonstrate Chainlink's diversification of use cases.
Meanwhile, Chainlink secures over 53% of the total DeFi value, equivalent to more than $36.79 billion. This oracle provider has partnered with 407 crypto projects, not counting experimental use cases in traditional financial institutions. LINK also appears in the wallet of the DeFi World Liberty Financial lending protocol, which is backed by Trump, holding over 78,000 tokens since its initial purchase.
The Chainlink platform has also built a loyal long-term holder community, seemingly still supporting the token even during corrections. For this reason, the accumulation activity of whales has been noted in previous bull markets, potentially signaling an upcoming price breakout.
Over the past few weeks, whales holding over 100,000 LINK in their wallets have also been accumulating more actively. Retail traders are selling, changing the token's holding profile. LINK is now 100% unlocked, and any changes in supply are taking place in the open market. Approximately 50% of the supply is locked with node operators, limiting the freely available LINK for DEX activities and utility purposes.
CCIP currently provides cross-chain connectivity to a total of 13 blockchains, on track to replace other bridge solutions and become the dominant protocol for cross-chain transfers.
*OI (Open Interest) is a measure of the total value of all outstanding or "unsettled" futures contracts on trading platforms, and is also an indicator of market price appreciation and trader sentiment around a specific asset.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not investment advice. Investors should do their own research before making decisions. We are not responsible for your investment decisions.
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Minh Anh
According to Cryptopolitan
