Long-suffering Link Marines smiling as Chainlink starts 2022 with strong gains

Chainlink was a major disappointment in the second half of 2021 – but the network of data oracles has started the new year on a strong note.

LINK tokens were trading for US$28 this morning, up 9.6 per cent from yesterday, for the biggest gains among any top 100 coin. Its 29 per cent gains for the week are second only to Internet Computer‘s 30 per cent rise, at least among the top 100.

The long-suffering “Link Marines” were boasting that this was their time now.

$LINK is going to triple digits in 2022. Quote me.

— Linkegen ♟ (@linkdegen) January 9, 2022

Chainlink data feeds are used by over a thousand crypto projects, as a way to integrate real-world information such as token prices into smart contracts.

LINK also got a boost last month with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt joining as a strategic advisor.

Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) Advisor
Jeff Weiner (former LinkedIn CEO) Advisor
Tom Gonser (DocuSgin founder) Advisor
Balaji Srinivasan (former Coinbase CTO) Advisor
Associated Press Chainlink Node
AccuWeather Chainlink Node
AWS Chainlink Quickstart

— ChainLinkGod.eth 2.0 (@ChainLinkGod) January 9, 2022

Crypto market up 0.1%

The rest of the crypto market is recovering slightly this morning, with Terra (LUNA) and Avalanche posting gains as most other top coins stagnate.

At lunchtime (Sydney time), Terra was up 6.7 per cent to $72.12 while Avax had climbed 6.0 per cent to $88.73.

Bitcoin had dipped 0.5 per cent to $41,742 while Ethereum was down 0.9 per cent to $3,156.

Dash was the second-biggest gainer in the top 100 (behind Chainlink), rising 7.3 per cent to $153.

Harmony (ONE) has been the biggest loser, falling 8.0 per cent to US28.9c. Cosmos, Yearn.Finance and Frax Shares were all down around five per cent.