Chainlink has unlocked 19 million LINK worth about $269 million, according to the established quarterly schedule.
The latest token release has attracted attention amid concerns about large volume trading related to a prominent trader on the Hyperliquid platform.
The latest token unlock of Chainlink
Of the total 19 million tokens unlocked, 14.8 million LINK (worth $212.9 million) was sent to Binance. This may be aimed at increasing liquidity for the exchange, as most of LINK's trading volume occurs on Binance.
The remaining 4.2 million LINK (worth $56.2 million) has been transferred to a multi-signature wallet labeled 0xD50. This token distribution action is not new, as Chainlink has continuously followed this pattern for years.
Data from SpotOnChain reveals that since August 2022, Chainlink has unlocked 176 million LINK, worth about $2 billion at that time and $2.43 billion at current prices.
Quarterly LINK unlock | Source: SpotOnChain
Of this, 151.3 million LINK was sent directly to Binance at an average price of $11.41.
Nevertheless, Chainlink still holds 342.5 million LINK, worth $4.7 billion, in non-circulating supply contracts.
Hyperliquid trader shifts focus to LINK
Blockchain analysis firm Lookonchain has identified a prominent whale shifting attention to LINK. This trader, known as 'ETH 50x Big Guy', garnered attention for executing leveraged trades resulting in a $4 million loss for Hyperliquid.
On March 14, this whale opened a Long position of $31,000 LINK with 10x leverage, executing trades on Hyperliquid and GMX – two major perpetual contract exchanges. Additionally, the whale purchased 863,174 LINK for $12.1 million USDC.
Mysterious trader on Hyperliquid Long LINK | Source: Lookonchain
However, on-chain data shows that whales have gradually reduced their holdings of LINK through numerous small transactions converting to stablecoins just a few hours after opening Long positions.
This trader first caught attention on March 12 after testing the trading framework of Hyperliquid. The platform incurred a loss of $4 million, prompting them to announce upcoming risk management changes.
Hyperliquid stated that starting from 07:00 on March 15, traders will need to maintain a margin ratio of 20% on margin trades. This update will not affect cross-margin trading unless the use of cross-margin exceeds 5x after opening an independent position.
"This update aims to maintain healthier margin requirements and reduce systemic impact from large positions with assumed market impact when closing," Hyperliquid explained.
Despite the changes, Hyperliquid reassured users that they can still trade with leverage up to 40x. This update specifically targets locking in profits and unrealized losses (PnL) from open positions.
Meanwhile, these incidents did not negatively impact the price of LINK, which recovered to $14 in the past 24 hours. This reverses a 12% drop from last week and a 27% decline over the past month.
