Chainlink

Bitcoin is back under $80,000 today, down about 1%, after a stellar August rally brought investors gains of over 20% in the last 30 days. The cryptocurrency got rejected from $82,000 twice over the past two weeks and opened this week pinned below $80,000, still under the 50-week moving average near $81,000 it lost back in May. Analysts are debating between the possibility of a trend reversal that would keep pushing prices up, and a so-called Bart Simpson pattern that would tank prices back down close to $65,000 in a few days. Meanwhile, Chainlink's LINK token climbed to $13.64, its highest level since January 18, a roughly 6.8% gain in 24 hours, the best among the 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. The rally follows Chainlink's deal with Bottomline, a top-three SWIFT services provider, to connect its systems to blockchains via Chainlink's infrastructure, and open interest on LINK contracts hit an 11-month high of $784 million.

Charles Schwab is expanding its spot crypto trading platform to include Solana, Avalanche, and Chainlink, joining the previously announced Bitcoin and Ethereum offerings. The new assets will be available for purchase and holding on the platform, though transfers on and off are not supported, with fees set at 75 basis points. Schwab, which oversees more than $12 trillion in client assets across approximately 39 million active brokerage accounts, is adding these three established infrastructure plays rather than a broad range of speculative tokens. The move is seen as a defensive strategy to retain customers seeking crypto exposure, as traditional brokerages and crypto-native platforms converge to offer comprehensive services.

The cryptocurrency market is watching the US Senate vote on the Clarity Act on September 15, which analysts at Altcoin Daily expect to be the biggest bipartisan crypto law. If passed, it would benefit projects linked to Wall Street and financial institutions. Seven coins to watch include Ethereum, whose ETF funds saw net inflows of $179.8 million, including $146.44 million from BlackRock; Solana, which processed 4.2 billion transactions in July, up 13.5%, and its price rose 40% in 8 days; Chainlink, whose Spot LINK ETF saw inflows of $18.27 million in August, holding 2.05% of supply; Zcash, which received CFTC approval for spot contracts; Hyperliquid, with August trading volume over $114 billion and monthly fees of $50 million; XRP, whose Spot XRP ETF saw inflows of $23.87 million on August 25; and Ondo, whose weekly active addresses rose to 22,000 from 5,000–6,000, with open interest surpassing $100 million.

Coinbase Global has selected Chainlink as its oracle infrastructure for tokenized stocks on the Base network, a move that could expand its role beyond digital representations of listed shares. By providing continuous pricing data, Chainlink helps make these assets usable across finance applications, connecting traditional securities with onchain markets and opening revenue opportunities for both companies. Coinbase has introduced tokenized versions of stocks such as Apple, NVIDIA, Meta, and Alphabet on Base, each token being a 1:1-backed claim on an underlying share held in regulated custody. Chainlink Data Feeds give developers across the Base ecosystem access to pricing information for these tokenized equities. Chainlink reports that tokenized equities are among the fastest-growing segments of the real-world asset market, with their value reaching a record $2.3 billion by mid-July 2026. The opportunity for Coinbase goes beyond transaction fees; if tokenized stocks gain acceptance as collateral in DeFi, they could attract liquidity, lending activity, and new financial products to Base. Meanwhile, Chainlink would benefit from growing demand for oracle services. In comparison, Robinhood launched tokenized stocks in Europe in 2025 and built Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum-compatible Layer-2 for traditional assets, while Interactive Brokers added nine new tokens through zerohash and three through Paxos, and introduced stablecoin transfers to external wallets. Shares of COIN have lost 20.3% year-to-date, underperforming the industry, and trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 80.85, significantly above the industry average of 17.2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COIN's third-quarter and fourth-quarter 2026 EPS has moved south in the last 30 days, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Chainlink with a price target of $200 by the end of 2030, implying a roughly 25-fold gain from around $8 today. Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, laid out staged targets of $13 by end-2025, then $41, $82 and $133 before reaching $200, while also forecasting Bitcoin at $500,000 and Ethereum at $40,000 by end-2030. The bank expects tokenized assets on-chain to climb to $4 trillion by end-2028 from about $340 billion now, and assets deployed in DeFi to grow to $2.7 trillion by 2030, driving Chainlink's fees about 25 times higher. Chainlink's total value secured is above $110 billion, covering roughly 70% of oracle-dependent value in DeFi globally and more than 80% on Ethereum, with institutions such as Swift, DTCC, Euroclear, JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS, Fidelity and S&P Global among its clients. The note also highlights that more than $7 billion in token value has moved to Chainlink's CCIP from legacy bridges since a $292 million exploit in April, with quarterly CCIP volume reaching $4.9 billion in the second quarter, up 353% year on year.

LINK, the native token of the Chainlink oracle network, has plunged more than 50% over the past 12 months but could rally as Chainlink locks in more blockchains and financial institutions. Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that fetches real-world data for developer-driven blockchains like Ethereum, and it is already the world's largest oracle network. It is working with major financial institutions such as UBS, JPMorgan, and Euroclear to accelerate blockchain transactions and tokenize real-world assets, and it is also helping legacy platforms like SWIFT and the DTCC streamline settlements. LINK's entire supply of one billion tokens was pre-minted on Ethereum with no more tokens ever to be created, and its value should rise as Chainlink expands and attracts more developers and node operators. Some bullish analysts expect LINK to soar back to the double digits over the next few years, though volatility could curb near-term growth if institutional partners negotiate private agreements paid in stablecoins or fiat currencies.

Chainlink recorded its largest growth days of the year, adding 6,100 new wallets over a two-day period. The network continues to see major ecosystem expansion and rising adoption despite prolonged volatility across the broader crypto market.

Chainlink has launched its APAC Equities Streams, providing real-time onchain price data for major Japanese stocks including Toyota Motor based on Tokyo Stock Exchange trading. This development could enable new blockchain-based applications and decentralized finance products using Toyota's equity data, potentially broadening investor access. The move does not alter Toyota's near-term fundamentals, which remain focused on production execution, cost control, and managing risks such as currency swings and tariffs. Toyota recently appointed Stephen Brennan as chief production leader for the Advanced Technology Area, tightening leadership over advanced manufacturing and digital transformation. Analyst forecasts project Toyota's revenue to reach ¥55,996.0 billion and earnings of ¥4,388.8 billion by 2029, implying 3.4% annual revenue growth and an earnings increase of about ¥540.7 billion from the current ¥3,848.1 billion.