Why Chainlink is currently presenting this curious case

LINK is currently rallying, and it was trading at the $18 level, the price was up 6% in the past 24 hours. The altcoin has rallied from the beginning of 2021 until May 2021, based on the price chart. The price went from $11.87 on January 1 to a peak of $52 in May 2021. Since May 9, the price has dropped consistently. It was at the $18.56 level, despite a 7% gain in the past 24 hours.

Chainlink Price Chart || Source: CoinGecko

What’s interesting is that this altcoin is rallying, the trade volume is up, price is up, but on-chain sentiment continues to remain bearish. Does this mean LINK’s rally has slowed down? Slowing down would entail a drop in volatility and in the demand across exchanges. A drop in the transaction volume and transfer count on the LINK network would follow. Currently, the LINK percent balance on exchanges has increased. This shows the liquidity is high, at the same time, it increases the selling pressure on LINK.

LINK balance on exchanges || Source: Glassnode

The above chart showed that the balance increased after a drop in mid-May 2021. The balance has dropped since the beginning of January 2021, however, it increased on several occasions that coincided with a drop in price, owing to the increasing selling pressure. As the demand across spot exchanges drops, the liquidity is not absorbed and there is a drop in the percentage of large wallet inflows, investors, and transactions.

Overall, LINK percent balance on exchanges from Glassnode suggested it has slowed down since May 17. There were attempts at recovery, albeit a slow one. Other metrics like active wallet addresses on the LINK network and new wallets created on the network offer further insight into the momentum of the recovery and the price rally.

Since the number of new LINK wallets created on the network has dropped, in response to the growing balance on exchanges, it supports the narrative of a slow rally. These metrics, and on-chain metrics of LINK signal a slow down of the rally against increasing trade volume and market cap, which suggested that it may pick up the pace in July 2021, however, as of June 2021, LINK’s rally is slower than it has been this year.