Category: link

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How Chainlink will help secure Polkadot’s environment

Polkadot has integrated with Chainlink to incorporate its oracle service into its multi-chain environment. Thus, the different teams building on Polkadot will be able to count on a “flexible and reliable” solution to feed parachains with information.

Chainlink Price Feeds have been enabled as a Substrate Oracle pallet and can be accessed by any other pallet integrated into a parachain. Thus, deployable applications will have “powerful new functionality”.  According to a release from Polkadot’s team:

Chainlink Price Feeds will allow smart contract applications across the Polkadot ecosystem to access accurate, up-to-date and tamper-proof price reference data for powering new products and markets

Chainlink to power DApps on Polkadot

Parachains based on the Substrate network will have a direct connection to the “outside world” information provided by Chainlink via a runtime module. The pallet may be added with supported smart contract programming languages, before or after connecting it to the Chain Relay. Polkadot’s team states:

Either of these approaches allow developers to leverage Chainlink Price Feeds with limited technical effort. This integration supports the many smart contract applications and parachain pallets requesting access to Chainlink Price Feeds across Polkadot’s environment.

Additionally, a standard will be worked on to allow the use of the data feeds in all Polkadot parachains. The focus will be on an easy integration to leverage Chainlink’s 4 main features: high-quality data, decentralized infrastructure, secure nodes, cost-efficiency.

Apps connecting to Chainlink’s pallet will be able to add a collection of on-chain data sets for cryptocurrencies, FX rates, commodities, and other assets.

In addition, applications will have multiple functions such as settling cross-chain smart contracts, operating liquidation mechanisms, confirming the authenticity of reserves that collateralize a stablecoin, among others.

Head of Public Affairs at Parity Technologies, Peter Mauric believes that with this integration, Polkadot developers will be able to build the “next generation of high-performance decentralized applications”. Daniel Kochis, Head of Chainlink Business Development said:

We’re excited to empower developers across all parachains by providing them with a standardized, easy to integrate oracle solution for access to a wide range of high-quality, time-tested on-chain price feeds. By doing so, we can rapidly accelerate DeFi development within the Polkadot ecosystem, while maintaining the highest security and data quality requirements (…).

At the time of writing, DOT is trading at $43,88 with a 10.9% gain in the 24-hour chart. In the 7-days chart, DOT records a 32.4% profit and has managed to displace Cardano (ADA) in total market cap.

Chainlink LINK Polkadot DOT
DOT with moderate gains in the 24-hour chart. Source: DOTUSDT Tradingview

On the other hand, LINK trades at $30,82 with side movement in the daily chart and a 12.3% profit in the weekly chart.

Chainlink LINK Polkadot DOT LINKUSDT
LINK showing side movement in the 24-hour chart. Source: LINKUSDT Tradingview
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Chainlink Hits $30 as Grayscale Adds 115,570 LINK to Its Reserves

Chainlink prices climbed higher on Thursday, rising by as much as 5.10 percent on the prospects of higher institutional adoption.

The LINK/USD exchange rate reached its previous week’s high of $30 before correcting lower during the early London session. Its uptrend majorly came as a part of a broader bullish trend across the altcoin market. Meanwhile, LINK received an additional upward boost from New York-based Grayscale Investments’s overnight buying spree.

Grayscale Goes Shopping

Data fetched by ByBt.com shows that the crypto investment firm bought 115,570 LINK tokens for its Grayscale Chainlink Trust from March 17 until April 1. That includes a 65,570 LINK purchase on Thursday, which coincided with a price pump in the Chainlink market.

Grayscale LINK holdings shoot up dramatically overnight. Source: ByBt.com
Grayscale LINK holdings shoot up dramatically overnight. Source: ByBt.com

Technical indicators on the LINK/USD four-hour chart showed the pair trading inside an ascending rising wedge. The bids oscillated between two diverging bullish lines, providing traders ample opportunities to generate interim profits on each bounce from the lower trendline and pullback from the upper trendline.

Chainlink hints bearish reversal on ascending broadening wedge formation. Source: LINKUSD on TradingView.com
Chainlink hints bearish reversal on ascending broadening wedge formation. Source: LINKUSD on TradingView.com

Nevertheless, Ascending Rising Wedges are bearish reversal patterns. Central Charts notes that the bullish-looking structure leads to a downside breakout in 80 percent cases. Should it happen, the LINK price could fall to as low as $25.

A 37% Chainlink chaiBreakout Theory

An analysis shared by Akash Girimath on FXStreet.com shows Chainlink in an extemely bullish state. The analyst noted that LINK/USD now trades inside a symmetrical triangle structure, which raises the pair’s possibilities of logging a 37 percent bullish breakout move should it break above the pattern’s upper trendline resistance.

“A bullish breakout above $30.3 could push LINK to $41.6, but a breakdown of the lower trend line at $25 might result in a sell-off to $15.7,” noted Mr. Girimath.

Chainlink symmetrical triangle outlook, as presented by Akash Girimath. Source: LINKUSDT on TradingView.com
Chainlink symmetrical triangle outlook, as presented by Akash Girimath. Source: LINKUSDT on TradingView.com

Other cryptocurrency analysts also presented a bullish outlook for Chainlink, with Michaël van de Poppe, a Netherlands-based stock trader, highlighting LINK’s growing strength against its top rival bitcoin. An asset’s value against the dollar tends to rise faster if it grows against bitcoin, as well.

Chainlink trade outlook against bitcoin, as explained by Michaël van de Poppe. Source: LINKBTC on TradingView.com
Chainlink trade outlook against bitcoin, as explained by Michaël van de Poppe. Source: LINKBTC on TradingView.com

“LINK is most likely bottomed out in the BTC pair,” said Mr. Poppe.

More bullish tailwinds from on-chain data fetched by Santiment, a cryptocurrency sentiment tracking service. The platform noted that the number of rich Chainlink wallets hodling anywhere between 100 and 100,000 LINK tokens rose throoughout March, pointing to a higher buying sentiment.

“Chainlink knocked on the door of $30 for the first time in 11 days, climbing to $29.99 on Binance and still within close range. We’re keeping an eye on mid and large holders owning between 100 to 100k LINK, as they’ve accumulated greatly in March.”

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

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Chainlink’s Hackathon offers $125K in bounties, LINK going to $100?

With a start date of March 15th, The Spring 2021 Chainlink Virtual Hackathon records more than 3,500 participants. According to an official post, the participants are “building the next generation of smart contracts”.

The event will end on April 11th. However, those who wish to claim the $125,000 will have until today to register and qualified for the $125,000 bounties. The post claims:

The three-week event is an opportunity for developers throughout the Chainlink ecosystem to connect, collaborate, build and showcase innovations in DeFi, NFTs, gaming and universally connected smart contracts using Chainlink’s blockchain-agnostic oracle network and leading web3 technologies.

The prizes will be divided into $3,000 NFT and gaming, a $5,000 award for “social impact”. The latter has been made possible with a parentship with UNESCO Global Education Coalition. And a Chainlink grant that will go to the project accomplishes the following:

(…) the hackathon project that integrates Chainlink with the highest potential to deliver meaningful social impact in education.

At the event, there are projects like “dynamic NFTs powered by Chainlink VRF that incentivize and gamify education to reduce school dropout rates and support lifelong learning”. This could become the next step for this technology, according to Mickey Graham, Head of Growth at Chainlink Labs, so that NFT can be able to interact with oracles. Graham said:

Over time, I believe we’ll see NFTs evolve and transition into more dynamic assets, where external data and events that happen off-chain power upgrades or changes in NFTs.A great example of this, and one we’d love to see built during the Spring 2021 Hackathon, would be an NFT-powered learning badge for a skills-based course that is upgraded or powered up as off-chain modules are completed and recorded on-chain.

Is LINK going to a $100?

LINK is currently trading at $27,93 with 0.1% gains in the 24-hour chart. In the past weeks, LINK records 2.4% gains and 6.2% in the past month.

Chainlink LINK
LINK showing small gains in the 24-hour chart. Source: LINKUSDT Tradingview

Highly bullish on LINK’s performance, trader Michaël van de Popper predicts a possible bull-run towards $100. Claiming LINK’s price is close to “bottoming out”, he recommended investors keep an eye on the $19,5 to $20,75.

The trader considers the above range to be acting as support and could be a good opportunity for investors looking for a good entry into the cryptocurrency if it retraces to those levels. The trader also set $34 as LINK’s next target before going towards a new all-time high.

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Grayscale launches 5 new trust includes LINK, BAT, FIL

According to a press release, Grayscale Investments has added 5 new products to its Trusts offer. Expanding it to 14, Grayscale will have a Basic Attention Token, Chainlink, Decentraland, Filecoin, and Livepeer Trust.

Grayscale is one of the most important crypto investment firm. Eligible investors can now subscribe to the new trusts, they will operate as the firm’s other products with “periodic ongoing private placements”.

In the release, Grayscale claims their offer is among the first investment products based on the referred cryptocurrencies. The firm already offers trusts based on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar Lumens, and other digital assets.

Cryptocurrencies reached an inflection point

The trusts have been added after “a robust process” of research and assessment of the potential for each cryptocurrency, as CEO Michael Sonnenshein told Bloomberg. The executive claim they have a list of over 30 to 40 products which they “want to bring to the market”.

The firm works to “reconcile” investors’ interest in a cryptocurrency and “compelling opportunities”. Sonnenshein said:

There are many Grayscale products that have historically been a little bit before their time, before they began to resonate with investors sufficiently.

As per their latest report, Grayscale has over $42,9 billion assets under management. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) remains the most important with $36 billion. Grayscale CEO added:

Digital currencies have reached an inflection point. Investor demand has never been higher, and every day we’re seeing new entrants to what has surely become a bona fide asset class. Grayscale has long been the leader in creating novel pathways for investors to access the opportunities that digital currencies may offer, and this announcement carries on that tradition. We look forward to working with our global investor base, our growing team, and regulators to continue to move this industry forward.

Grayscale products have been of the recipients of investors looking for crypto exposure. Almost all of the cryptocurrencies recently included are showing good performance after the announcement.

LINK (13%) native token of the Ethereum-based oracle service Chainlink, FIL (35%) Filecoin’s token use to pay to store files, BAT (31.1%) a token that enables users to track their interest in properties store digitally, MANA (11.1%) Decentraland’s token utilized to acquire virtual land have been on the green zone in the last 24 hours.

However, Livepeer (LTP), a network for content delivery, has seen the biggest gains. With more than 183% in profits over the past day and 414.9% in the last two weeks.