Chainlink whales add $22M LINK, but institutions are quiet: Is $20 still possible?

Chainlink [LINK] has been stagnant over the past week with the market cap around $6.25 billion. Its daily trading activity is around $215 million with a volume-to-market-cap ratio at 3.36%.

The data shows normal trading activity and fair liquidity, probably influenced by retailers and whales. However, institutional capital is still sidelined. Can whales and retailers drive Chainlink’s price action on their own?

Whales accumulate

Over the past month, a whale has been accumulating Chainlink tokens from the Binance exchange. These buys constituted orders worth hundreds of thousands.

The last buy was made three weeks ago, with 18.748K LINK tokens worth $151.486K. This brought the entire stack to 266.4144K LINK, now worth $2.153 million.

The entire balance was moved to the Gnosis Safe multisig wallet, indicating a long-term accumulation.

Another whale was purchasing LINK. Recently, they bought 163.494K tokens valued at $1.37 million from Coinbase. Its holdings are now 2.413 million LINK, costing $20.15 million.

The whales continue to hunt for more of the circulating supply, indicating serious conviction. They reinforce the demand created by Chainlink Reserve, which added 706K LINK in July.

However, there was zero activity from the spot Chainlink ETFs, as well as those of Dogecoin [DOGE] and Avalanche [AVAX]. This activity was happening despite renewed interest in altcoins and memecoins.

LINK revisits 4-year low – What’s coming?

On the charts, LINK was trading at a demand zone between $5.638 and $8.727 that had formed four years ago. This demand zone lasted more than a year and a half, from May 2022 to mid-October 2023.

Three rallies to $22, $29, and $27 all started from this demand zone. The altcoin continues to consolidate around this level, hinting at potential bottoming.

The Choppiness Index was at 51, reinforcing the sideways movement around the $8 zone. It was also between the 9-week and 21-week moving averages.

However, the current retest of the zone has been deeper than in the previous three rallies. That could result in a more explosive rally as traders up their accumulation.

In fact, addresses with balance have been in an uptrend since early 2023. This figure stands at 902,203, indicating traders across different divides were buying LINK tokens and could move the price with minimal institutional capital.

Therefore, if the demand zone holds, the price might trade to levels above $20. Again, the odds of a decline to the demand zone low at $4.85 cannot be overlooked.

Final Summary

• Chainlink whales continue to withdraw LINK tokens from exchanges, while spot Chainlink ETFs have seen no weekly activity.
• LINK traded above a demand zone that formed four years ago and has defended its price since then.