Chainlink – Assessing market impact after $269M LINK unlock

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Unlocking the Mystery: What Happens When 19 Million Tokens Go Free?

  • Chainlink has unlocked 19M tokens and this could define LINK’s direction in the short-term
  • Top whale wallets offloaded 13 million tokens two days before the unlock event

On the 15th of March, in a move that could only be described as a financial magician’s trick, Chainlink [LINK] decided to unlock a staggering 19 million tokens worth a jaw-dropping $269 million. This was all part of their quarterly schedule, as reported by the ever-watchful blockchain analytics platform, Spot On Chain. The firm stated,

“14.875M $LINK ($212.9M) was sent to #Binance. 4.125M $LINK ($56.2M) was transferred to multi-sig wallet ‘0xD50’”

Now, despite this massive unlock, LINK seemed to be playing it cool, remaining unscathed and even managing a cheeky 6% rise following Bitcoin’s rebound to a staggering $85k. The burning question on everyone’s lips – can LINK really shrug off this unlock without a dramatic plunge? AMBCrypto decided to dig into the archives to see how past unlocks fared.

LINK’s post-unlock analysis

According to Spot On Chain, this latest unlocked amount was reminiscent of February 2024, but alas, it was still less than the 21 million tokens released back in June of last year. The past unlocks (marked by those vertical, dotted white lines) were plotted against BTC’s price action (the yellow line, for those keeping score at home).

Interestingly, apart from last September’s unlock, LINK had a rather dismal record of closing in the red for the rest of the events. However, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, LINK typically bounced back after a day or two, marking a local bottom unless Bitcoin decided to throw a tantrum. Whether this trend will repeat itself this time around remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Read more$70 million in 24 hours: Can Ethereum crack $4,000 thanks to whales?

In a twist worthy of a soap opera, the largest whale wallets, those holding between 10M – 100M LINK tokens (the red ones, for those who like to color-code their investments), offloaded about 13 million tokens just ahead of the unlock on March 13. At press time, this elite group was still clutching onto 467.63M LINK.

Conversely, the 1M-10M LINK wallet cohort decided to play the role of the hero, absorbing the offloading and holding about half of the 467.63M LINK tokens that the large whales had. Talk about a plot twist!

On the trading front, one particularly ambitious player went long on LINK with a whopping $7.1 million position size just hours before the unlock on Hyperliquid. However, in a classic case of “what could go wrong,” he ended up selling at a loss post-unlock. Spot On Chain added,

“The ‘50x ETH’ whale dumped 1.34M $LINK on-chain for $18.36M at ~$13.7 in the past two hours, losing $512K (-2.7%).”

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AMBCrypto then took a gander at LINK’s selling pressure on centralized exchanges (CEXes) to gauge where LINK might be headed next. Although sell pressure was somewhat flat at press time, offloading had increased over the past two days. The exchange reserves jumped from 30.8M tokens to 31M tokens, indicating a slight uptick in selling pressure before the unlock. It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck.

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2025-03-15 15:06