Chainlink Price (LINK)

LINK Price History and All-Time High

LINK's all-time high is still its May 2021 peak: $52.70 on 9 May 2021 according to CoinGecko, which averages trades across many exchanges, and $52.99 on Coinbase Exchange just after midnight UTC on 10 May. The table names the source of every figure.

LINK rose 39% in August 2026 and 27% in September, then gave back 16% in the first half of October (Coinbase Exchange). Checked on 15 October 2026.

What Is Chainlink (LINK)?

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network: a system of independent node operators that bring outside information, such as asset prices, into blockchain smart contracts. Blockchains cannot fetch data from the internet on their own, so a lending app that needs to know the price of ETH, or an insurance contract that needs to know whether a flight was delayed, relies on an oracle to deliver that information. Chainlink also lets smart contracts send messages and tokens between different blockchains.

LINK is the token of the Chainlink network. Node operators are paid in LINK for their work, and holders can stake LINK to help secure some of Chainlink's services. Chainlink was co-founded by Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis, published its whitepaper in 2017 and went live on Ethereum in May 2019. By the value of the assets it helps secure, it is the most widely used oracle network in DeFi.

Chainlink at a Glance

The Oracle Problem

Smart contracts run inside a blockchain and can only see data that is already on that chain, so they have no direct way to learn market prices, interest rates or bank balances. An oracle bridges that gap, but a single oracle is a single point of failure: if one company or server supplies the data, it can make a mistake, be hacked or be bribed, and every contract that depends on it can be drained. Chainlink's answer is to use many independent nodes and many data sources, so no single party controls the result.

How Chainlink Works

Each Chainlink service runs on a decentralized oracle network (DON), a group of independent node operators that each fetch data, compare their answers and agree on one result before it is written to the blockchain.

For a price feed, the process looks like this:

• Collect: each node pulls the asset's price from several professional data providers that aggregate prices across exchanges.
• Agree: the nodes share their answers off-chain and combine them into a single value, usually the median, signed by the group.
• Deliver: the agreed value is written to an on-chain contract that any app can read. Feeds update on a schedule and whenever the price moves by more than a set amount.

Because a feed uses many independent nodes and many sources, one faulty node or data provider cannot move the result on its own.

Who Runs Chainlink's Nodes?

Each price feed has its own set of node operators, mostly professional infrastructure firms, which Chainlink's documentation describes as security-reviewed and Sybil-resistant. The operators on every feed and their performance are public: the ETH/USD feed that LINK staking secures, for example, is answered by 31 operators, including Blockdaemon, Chainlayer and Fiews (Chainlink staking, 15 October 2026). Not just anyone can join a feed, which is part of the trade-off described in the risks below.

Chainlink's Main Services

• Data Feeds: the price feeds that most lending, derivatives and stablecoin protocols use to value collateral and trigger liquidations. In September 2026 they went live on Stellar.
• Data Streams: faster prices pulled on demand, built for derivatives exchanges.
• CCIP: the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol lets smart contracts send messages and tokens between blockchains, watched by a separate risk-management network that can pause transfers. Open to all developers since April 2024, it connected 77 networks and 281 tokens in October 2026. CCIP 2.0, launched on 28 September 2026, lets token issuers run their own verifiers and adds built-in compliance checks. Read more about cross-chain interoperability.
• Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE): live since 4 November 2025, CRE runs workflows that combine Chainlink services across chains and bank systems. In 2026 Functions (calls to outside web APIs) and Automation (contracts triggered on a schedule) moved onto it.
• Proof of Reserve and SmartData: check and publish on-chain the reserves, net asset value and other data behind stablecoins, wrapped tokens and tokenized funds.
• VRF: verifiable random numbers for blockchain games, NFT mints and lotteries, with a proof that the number was not tampered with (now VRF v2.5).
• Automated Compliance Engine (ACE): compliance rules for tokenized assets, in early access since June 2025.

Chainlink says its services have enabled more than $36 trillion in transaction value (Chainlink, 15 October 2026), and it put the value secured by its services at $110 billion in the second quarter of 2026.

Who Uses Chainlink?

• Aave: Chainlink price feeds are one of the two main types of oracle on Aave's markets (Aave docs).
• Compound: Compound III's prices are updated by Chainlink price feeds (Compound docs).
• GMX: the derivatives exchange prices its markets with Chainlink Data Streams (GMX docs).
• Lido: in November 2025 Lido made CCIP the official cross-chain infrastructure for wstETH, its wrapped staked ether (Lido).
• Spark: SparkLend uses Chainlink as one of its three price sources, alongside Chronicle and RedStone (Spark docs).

Banks and market infrastructure firms are covered in Chainlink and traditional finance below.

What Is LINK Used For?

• Paying node operators: apps and institutions pay for Chainlink services, and node operators are rewarded in LINK.
• Staking: LINK holders can stake their tokens to help secure Chainlink's ETH/USD price feed and earn rewards (see how staking works).
• The Chainlink Reserve: since August 2025, part of the revenue Chainlink earns from enterprises and on-chain users is converted into LINK and held in the Chainlink Reserve, a long-term on-chain treasury. Through Payment Abstraction, users can pay for services in other tokens, which are then converted into LINK. Chainlink says it does not expect any withdrawals from the Reserve "for multiple years" (Chainlink).

LINK Supply and Distribution

LINK has a fixed total supply of 1 billion tokens, all created at launch in 2017. No new LINK can be minted. The original allocation was:

Tokens from the node operator and company allocations are released over time, so the circulating supply has grown steadily since 2019. About 766.8 million LINK were in circulation on 15 October 2026 (CoinGecko and Chainlink's own supply page).

LINK on Ethereum uses the ERC-677 standard, an extension of ERC-20 that adds a way to send tokens and data in one transaction. LINK also exists on many other blockchains and layer 2 networks, where it is moved through CCIP.

Official LINK Token Contracts

Many fake tokens use the LINK name. Before you buy, receive or swap LINK on any network, check the token's contract against Chainlink's official list. These are the official LINK contracts on the main networks:

On BNB Chain and Polygon, a bridged version of LINK also circulates, and some price sites list it instead. It is not the official token; Chainlink's PegSwap converts it. Checked on 15 October 2026.

How Chainlink Staking Works

Chainlink staking launched on 6 December 2022 with a 25 million LINK pool. The current version, Staking v0.2, opened in stages from 28 November 2023 and to everyone on 11 December 2023.

• Pool size: 45 million LINK, of which 40.875 million is for community stakers (1 to 15,000 LINK per address) and 4.125 million for node operators.
• What it secures: staked LINK backs Chainlink's ETH/USD price feed on Ethereum, and node operators can be penalized if the feed fails.
• Rewards: variable. The rate was 4.32% a year on 15 October 2026, and the community pool was full (Chainlink staking).
• Unstaking: a 28-day cooldown, then a 7-day window to withdraw. LINK not withdrawn in that window goes back into the pool.

Staking happens in Chainlink's own staking app. The two US spot LINK ETFs do not stake, according to their filings.

Chainlink and Traditional Finance

Chainlink has become one of the main bridges between banks and public blockchains. In 2023 it ran experiments with Swift and a group of large banks on moving tokenized assets between chains, and it has run pilots with the DTCC and several major asset managers on putting fund data and tokenized funds on-chain. In August 2025 the US Department of Commerce chose Chainlink, along with another oracle provider, to publish official economic data such as GDP on public blockchains. In September 2026 Chainlink partnered with Bottomline, a Swift service provider to more than 600 banks, and with Infosys, and said it would let banks connect to Swift's blockchain ledger through CRE (Chainlink).

Bitcoin.com Interview with Sergey Nazarov

Bitcoin.com spoke with Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov about connecting crypto markets with traditional finance. He discusses cross-chain DeFi, the role of oracles in securing on-chain applications, and why institutions such as JPMorgan, Fidelity and UBS are moving parts of their business on-chain.

Chainlink ETFs

Two US spot Chainlink ETFs trade on NYSE Arca. An ETF gives price exposure through an ordinary brokerage account, but investors do not hold the LINK themselves.

• Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF (GLNK): the first, trading since 2 December 2025 after converting from a trust. It held 12.9 million LINK, about $160 million, on 14 October 2026, and charges 0.35% a year (Grayscale).
• Bitwise Chainlink ETF (CLNK): trading since 14 January 2026. It held 4.85 million LINK, about $60 million, on 13 October 2026, and charges 0.34% a year (Bitwise).

Neither fund stakes its LINK, and no other US spot LINK ETF had been filed by mid-October 2026.

Key Milestones

For the LINK price on these dates, see LINK Price History and All-Time High above.

Latest Chainlink Developments

• 14 October, Stellar: the Stellar Development Foundation announced that Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams are live on Stellar (Stellar). CCIP is not live there yet.
• 9 October, token release: 18.75 million LINK left the wallets Chainlink lists as non-circulating (on-chain).
• 8 October, the Reserve: after its latest weekly addition of 82,480 LINK, the Chainlink Reserve held 6.2 million LINK (Chainlink).
• 28 to 30 September, Sibos: Chainlink launched CCIP 2.0, said banks will be able to connect to Swift's blockchain ledger through CRE, and launched Fulcrum for cross-chain securities financing (Chainlink).
• 22 September, Infosys: a strategic partnership under which Infosys standardises on Chainlink services for its banking clients (Chainlink).
• 3 September, Bottomline: the Swift service provider, which serves more than 600 banks, partnered with Chainlink (Chainlink).
• 4 August, BitGo: BitGo made CCIP the exclusive cross-chain infrastructure for WBTC, its wrapped bitcoin (BitGo).

Checked on 15 October 2026. We update this section every month.

Buy, Sell and Store LINK with Bitcoin.com

• Buy: you can buy LINK with a card or bank transfer through a payment provider, which sends it as ERC-20 LINK on Ethereum to a wallet address you control. Payment methods, fees and limits depend on your country and the provider.
• Sell: you can sell LINK for cash in supported regions.
• Store: keep LINK in an Ethereum (ERC-20) wallet you control, or a hardware wallet for larger amounts. LINK exists on many networks, so check the network and the official contract before you send, and be wary of bridges and tokens that are not the official version.

LINK can also be swapped on decentralized exchanges.

Chainlink Price Predictions

Few banks publish a LINK forecast. In a client note reported on 10 August 2026, Standard Chartered's head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, began covering LINK when it traded at about $8.25. He forecast $13 by the end of 2026 and $200 by the end of 2030, on the view that tokenized assets and DeFi will grow and that Chainlink's fees, and the LINK price with them, will grow too. The first step can already be checked: on 15 October 2026 LINK was about $12.08. Grayscale Research has made the case for Chainlink as infrastructure for tokenization without setting a price target.

When you read any LINK forecast, check who made it, when, what it assumes about fees and adoption, and whether the forecaster sells a LINK product. Forecasts are opinions, not guarantees, and this page does not make one.

Risks of Holding LINK

• Token supply held by the team: about 233 million LINK, 23% of the total supply, still sits in non-circulating wallets, which released 58.75 million LINK in 2026. Some holders see these releases as steady selling pressure.
• Concentration of control: each price feed is run by a chosen set of node operators rather than an open, permissionless group (see who runs the nodes), and many Chainlink contracts can be upgraded by multisig wallets controlled by a small number of signers. Critics argue this leaves more trust in the Chainlink team than the word "decentralized" suggests.
• Value capture: much of Chainlink's usage has historically been subsidized, and whether fees will grow enough to support LINK's value is still open. The Reserve's 6.2 million LINK measures the fees captured so far.
• Competition: other oracle networks compete for the same customers, especially for fast price data on newer blockchains.
• Regulation: the SEC's March 2026 view of LINK as a digital commodity is guidance, not law, and can change.
• Price volatility: like any cryptocurrency, LINK's price can move sharply. It fell 91% from its 2021 high by June 2023 and was 87% below it at its June 2026 low. This page is not financial advice.

Figures checked on 15 October 2026.