Chainlink has unlocked 19 million LINK tokens worth approximately $269 million, following its established quarterly schedule.
The latest token release has drawn attention amid concerns about a notable transaction involving a high-profile trader on the Hyperliquid platform.
Chainlink’s Latest Token Unlock
Out of the total 19 million tokens unlocked, 14.875 million LINK, valued at $212.9 million, were sent to Binance. This is potentially to add liquidity to the exchange, as the largest percentage of LINK’s trading volume takes place on Binance.
The remaining 4.125 million LINK, worth $56.2 million, moved to a multi-signature wallet labeled 0xD50. This token distribution is not new, as Chainlink has consistently followed this pattern for years.
SpotOnChain data reveals that since August 2022, Chainlink has unlocked 176 million LINK, worth approximately $2 billion at the time and $2.43 billion at current prices.
Of these, 151.3 million LINK have been directly deposited to Binance at an average price of $11.41.
Despite these transactions, Chainlink still holds 342.5 million LINK, valued at $4.7 billion, across various non-circulating supply contracts.
Hyperliquid Trader Pivots to LINK
On-chain intelligence firm Lookonchain has identified a high-profile whale shifting focus to LINK. The trader, known as the “ETH 50x Big Guy,” gained attention for executing leveraged trades that resulted in a $4 million loss for Hyperliquid.
On March 14, this whale entered a $31,000 long position on LINK with 10x leverage, executing trades on Hyperliquid and GMX, two major perpetuals exchanges. Additionally, the whale purchased 863,174 LINK for $12.1 million USDC.
However, blockchain data indicates that the whale gradually reduced LINK holdings through multiple small swaps into stablecoins just hours after opening the long position.
This trader first made headlines on March 12 after aggressively testing Hyperliquid’s trading framework. The platform suffered a $4 million loss, prompting it to announce upcoming risk management changes.
Hyperliquid stated that starting March 15 at 00:00 UTC, traders will need to maintain a 20% margin ratio on margin transfers. This update will not affect cross-margin trading unless cross-margin usage exceeds 5x after opening an isolated position.
“This update is intended to maintain healthier margin requirements and reduce the systemic impact of large positions with hypothetical market impact upon closing,” Hyperliquid explained.
Despite the changes, Hyperliquid reassured users that they can still trade with up to 40x leverage. The update specifically targets withdrawals of unrealized profit and loss (PnL) from open positions.
Meanwhile, these incidents have not negatively impacted LINK’s price, which rebounded by over 4% to $13.90 in the last 24 hours. This reverses a 12% decline from the past week and a 27% drop over the past month.
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