Chainlink Price Surges 17% to $17.33, Overtaking MATIC and Eyeing Polkadot Next – Should Investors Buy LINK Now?

• On-chain data shows that crypto whales with massive war chests have recently accumulated Chainlink (LINK) on the largest crypto exchange, Binance.
• LINK has gained 9% in the past day and over 17% since the whale started accumulating, and since the whale had purchased close to $6 million worth of LINK ten days ago, the accumulation is likely to continue.

Crypto whales tend to move the market, and aping into their trends early enough can give investors a direct ticket to profit land. Most recently, whales are accumulating Chainlink, and true to history, LINK has been one of the biggest gainers over the past day. Is it time to invest in the Oracle network’s native token?

LINK is changing hands at $16.88 at press time, up 8.93% in the past day. In that time, it has hit an intra-day high of $17.5, at which point it had gained 17%. LINK’s market cap stands at $9.592 billion, ranking 13th on the charts, just behind Polygon, but at $17.5, it had overtaken MATIC and was pushing towards overtaking Polkadot.

Chainlink’s rise is reflected in the coin’s trading volume, which has shot up a staggering 136% in the past day to hit $1.3 billion. This is higher than Polygon, Avalanche, and Optimism, all of which have recently been among the best performers.

According to Lookonchain, an on-chain analytics platform, LINK’s market movement has been pushed by crypto whales who have been accumulating the token. Lookonchain showed that one whale withdrew 136,000 LINK tokens from Binance today, worth over $2 million. Ten days ago, the same whale address had withdrawn 384,000 LINK tokens from the same exchange, worth $5.79 million.

Aside from LINK, the whales have been accumulating MKR, the native token of the Maker DAO ecosystem. This increased demand has also pushed MKR’s price, which has gained 11% in the past day, to trade at $1,642. MKR is up 25% in the past week for a $1.66 billion market cap.

Whales are known for holding their tokens for years and making a handsome profit when they finally sell them. One whale, noticed by Lookonchain, turned a $500,000 investment in Aave, the decentralized lending protocol, into $13 million, making 25x in profits.

The whale activity on LINK continues, with the popular service Whale Alert revealing that over $20 million worth of the token has been withdrawn from exchanges to private wallets today, which usually indicates HODLing.

500,000 #LINK (8,574,944 USD) transferred from #Bybit to unknown wallethttps://t.co/xxVSWtHQo9

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 28, 2023

Time to Buy Chainlink (LINK)?

Despite the consistent rise by LINK, on-chain data shows that there’s still room for improvement and that the token is still undervalued. One key metric, the Network Value to Transactions (NVT) Ratio, has decreased over the past three months, indicating that the amount of activity and investor interest in the token warrants a higher price.

LINK’s Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) also shows room for growth. From September to mid-last month, this metric was on the rise and indicated that the token might be overvalued. However, it has since dipped significantly and is spiraling towards single digits. This indicates that the upside for LINK, given the price at which the holders purchased the token, is massive.