Chainlink price rose 22%, liquidating more than $2.54 million in short positions. According to Lookonchain, some whale activity triggered the altcoin price surge. Meanwhile, Chainlink Co-Founder predicts trillions in value as banks adopt Blockchain technology.
LINK bears face liquidations
Chainlink price is the first Decentralized Finance (DeFi) coin pumped after The Compound platform’s COMP token. The altcoin price has risen by about 22% over the past eight hours. This caused the short position worth $ 2.54 million to come out of the water. The last time such a large amount of position was liquidated was in January 2022, when the Chainlink price dropped by almost 50%.
Altcoin price seeks an exit from consolidation
Chainlink price has been consolidating between $5.53 and $9.66 for 434 days. The spike in buying pressure caused LINK to rise over 20%. Thus, it caught the bears and investors off guard. As a result, LINK price broke above the midpoint of the range at $7.59. It also broke a critical $7.99 resistance level. This resistance level has been a thorn for the bulls at about the same time as the consolidation.
According to analysts, the increase in buying pressure that drives up the LINK price could face a big profit buying if it is a one-off. In such a case, LINK is likely to be withdrawn. In this case, it is possible to retest the midpoint of the range as a support base at $7.59. Breaking this level could threaten recent gains. Thus, Chainlink price will likely drop to $5.93.
What drives the altcoin price today?
According to on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, LINK’s price hike was triggered by some recent whale activity. Lookonchain reported that two whale addresses “0xc212” and “0x86bd”, which they suspect belong to the same person, purchased $6 million worth of LINK in the early hours of Thursday.
The transaction took place as both whale addresses exchanged 3,074 stETH worth $5.87 million and 71 ETH worth $136,000 for 788,877 LINK tokens. Lookonchain noted that this whale move instantly increased the price of LINK by 6.5%. He also noted that the token has been in an uptrend since then.
Interestingly, Lookonchain reported two more whale transactions on the Chainlink network during the day. The analytics platform states that whales with wallet addresses “0x0fAC” and “0x67c8” purchased a total of 227,281 LINK tokens worth $1.82 million.
For now, there is no clear reason behind these whale transactions. However, LINK traders would benefit from watching these whales make their next move due to the potential impact on the market.
Chainlink Co-Founder predicts trillions of dollars worth!
Chainlink recently unveiled its cross-chain interoperability protocol that aims to revolutionize seamless money transfer between different Blockchains. However, according to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, the goals of this project go far beyond simply connecting public blockchains. Nazarov envisions a future where banks and financial institutions will launch their own controlled or permissioned Blockchain. He predicts that eventually by connecting them to public blockchains like Ethereum, they will lead to a huge increase in value for the crypto industry.
The newly launched protocol acts as a technical infrastructure that facilitates the transfer of tokens from one Blockchain to another. We know Chainlink for providing reliable real-world data to Blockchains. The project now facilitates the secure exchange of information between Blockchains. Although currently up and running on the mainnet, the protocol is still in the early access phase. It is also being tested in collaboration with well-known crypto projects such as Synthetix and Aave.
Sergey Nazarov expressed his observations about the changing dynamics in the attitude of the banking sector towards Blockchain technology. In the past, when crypto prices fell, banks tended to lose interest. However, this time, banks showed constant interest in line with the demands of their customers, who primarily wanted to explore Blockchain solutions.
Nazarov outlined a three-step process for banks to adopt Blockchain technology. In Phase 1, banks focus on custody services for crypto assets requested by their customers. In Phase 2, banks start tokenizing real-world assets. They also face the critical decision of which blockchain to host these assets on. Phase 3 marks a deeper integration of Blockchain technology within banks as they develop financial protocols on their own private Blockchains, reflecting the current decentralized finance (DeFi) environment but within a regulated framework. Nazarov expects Chainlink to play an important role in this phase as well.