Partnership with Fidelity and new development directions: an overview of Chainlink (LINK) updates
Chainlink is a leading blockchain protocol providing Web3 oracles for exchanging data between networks and decentralized applications. Chainlink oracles are used by many DeFi protocols, including giants such as the most prominent decentralized exchange Uniswap and credit platform Aave, not to mention large international partners, the list of which is continuously growing.
Chainlink's market performance
After reaching an all-time high (ATH) of $52.2 in May 2021, the price of the LINK cryptocurrency dropped significantly amid the general collapse of the crypto market. From June 2022 to September 2023, the Chainlink rate changed insignificantly, almost always in a sideways movement (flat), and only then resumed growth. As of August 2024, the price of LINK is $11.2, and in March of the same year, it reached an annual high of $21.2.
At the same time, since September 2023, Chainlink's capitalization has more than doubled from $3.21 billion to $6.8 billion. According to this indicator, LINK is among the top 20 largest cryptocurrencies in the CoinMarketCap ranking. Over the past year, Chainlink's rate has been fully correlated with the price of bitcoin; that is, it repeats its movement, except that LINK's drawdowns and growth are usually more rapid.
Chainlink updates and future
Chainlink is actively collaborating with Web2 companies to expand its reach and, in the process, increase the number of active users in the ecosystem. For example, back in February 2024, Chainlink Labs, the organization behind the development of the blockchain oracle protocol, entered into a strategic partnership with Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, which aims to increase the security of the Web3 ecosystem. The integration of Chainlink oracles into Telefonica's products will increase mobile users' security and open up new use cases.
Well-known companies such as Vodafone and Swisscom also operate the nodes that secure the Chainlink network and process all transactions.
Another example: in July 2024, 21Shares, a well-known investment firm managing $3.2 billion in assets, integrated the Proof-of-Reserve consensus mechanism developed by the Chainlink team to increase the transparency of its Ethereum-ETF (CETH) reserves.
In the same month, the Chainlink team announced a partnership with investment firms Sygnum and Fidelity, which, just like 21Shares, launched their own Bitcoin-ETF and Ethereum-ETF. By the way, Fidelity is one of the world's largest investment companies and manages more than $815 billion in assets. Chainlink has entered a similar partnership to confirm Bitcoin-ETF reserves with Ark Invest.
Partnerships with such giants, which were not previously associated with the cryptocurrency market, indicate not only the high level of technology provided by Chainlink but also show a high demand for them, so there is no doubt that the Chainlink protocol will remain the leader in its segment for at least the next few years.
Chainlink aims to cover many different sectors, including in the Web2 sphere, such as, for example, traditional finance (TradFi), of which Real World Assets (RWA) is a part — this segment is one of the main trends of the crypto industry in 2024. The Chainlink team decided to make RWA tokenization one of the priority areas for the development of its ecosystem. In May 2024, Chainlink announced a partnership with Arta TechFin, a prominent Hong Kong-based asset management company that provides financial services related to the RWA sector.
This partnership will address the major pain points associated with the RWA sector's challenges, from originating assets outside of blockchain to ensuring the integrity of products and services. The tokenization of real-world assets will accelerate transactions that could previously take weeks or even months without the use of blockchain and reduce associated costs.
Chainlink has multiple development vectors, and judging by the large number of prominent partner companies, the project team has succeeded in each, setting the stage for the ecosystem's future growth. Given the surge of interest in the RWA market, experts predict they may launch an ETF on Chainlink soon. Analysts speculate that the first investment company to launch an ETF on Chainlink could be Grayscale.
According to DeFi Llama, RWA is one of the ten largest sectors of the decentralized finance (DeFi) market, with a total value of $6.5 billion in assets locked in protocols (TVL), and this figure has grown by 75% over the past year. These statistics favor Chainlink's ecosystem and could encourage the adoption of an ETF on its asset soon.