Mooners and Shakers: Whale investors dive deep into Chainlink, while institutional money eyes Solana

Seriously, mate, get a room. (Pic via Getty Images)

Bitcoin is still ranging in the mid-US$29ks, as the stagnation for the crypto market continues. However, there’s still plenty happening behind the charts, including some big interest for altcoins Chainlink and Solana.

Let’s start with Chainlink

What’s that again? It’s a web3 oracle.

Er… righto. Like the Oracle of Omaha or the Oracle of Delphi, one of whom we’re pretty sure hates crypto? Nope.

It’s a web3 services network built on Ethereum and is ubiquitous across the crypto industry. It helps decentralised-app-building developers seamlessly access “real-world data” and off-chain computation and bridge that to smart contracts running on blockchains.

Look, it’s important, okay?

Annnyway, the point of the mention up front here is that it seems things are afoot in the deeper waters of investment land when it comes to Chainlink’s token, LINK.

#Chainlink‘s #github development activity has been notably higher this summer, leading to the asset cracking the top 5 most frequent developed assets. Additionally, whales & sharks with 100K-10M $LINK now hold the most coins since December, 2022. https://t.co/p1x6LeiRAG pic.twitter.com/wd2tR5p1A1

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) August 7, 2023

New data from the crypto market analytics platform Santiment shows that deep-pocketed investors (aka “whales” and “sharks”) have recently been seen (presumably on crypto fish finders devices) gobbling up some US$192.2 million of the asset in less than four weeks.

That’s a fair bit. Has the price rocketed then? Not exactly, but it’s been trending upwards of late (roughly 30% over the past month, 5% over the past week and 4% over the past 24 hours).

So something’s happening with one of the most respected altcoins. And, notes Santiment, Chainlink’s development activity has been receiving a boost, too.

“Chainlink’s GitHub development activity has been notably higher this summer, leading to the asset cracking the top 5 most frequent developed assets,” said the blockchain data gurus.

“Additionally, whales and sharks with 100,000-10 million LINK now hold the most coins since December 2022.”

$LINK is challenging its multi-year Macro Downtrend for a breakout again#LINK #Crypto #Chainlink pic.twitter.com/zwvP6yr6cH

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) August 9, 2023

Meanwhile, institutions eye up Solana

According to @CoinSharesCo, #Solana saw the largest inflow of institutional investment last week, by far. $SOL pic.twitter.com/9xs96Ar0pI

— InvestAnswers (@invest_answers) August 8, 2023

Coinbase’s ace of Base

• Coinbase’s brand, spanking new Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Base is up and running and open to the public and ready to bridge over some ETH for all those interested and still wondering if Base will do an airdrop.

Note… Coinbase/Base has indicated in the past that they won’t be creating and distributing a token, but in this cautious era of SEC boss Gary Gensler’s draconian oversight on the US crypto industry, people say a lot of things to keep the regulators sweet.

But… surely GG’s days are numbered… right? Right?

Multi-billionaire Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein certainly reckons “waiting out regulators you don’t like” is a popular strategy in Washington. He also talked up Bitcoin, saying “it’s not going away”. Well, that’s kind of talking it up.

Bloomberg / Rubenstein gaslighting the public into believing #BTC is anything other than a dangling carrot to lure people into the new system. Its a distraction from “legit” digital assets that are infrastructure

“Gensler is anti crypto”

Maybe the least bullish clip to date https://t.co/6xiaGTDyaD

— Truth Maximalist (@TommaSidor) August 9, 2023

But asides aside, the Base news carries some significance, seeing as Coinbase is the only publicly listed native crypto company.

It certainly carries meaning for those who hold COIN, and that’s because the company expects Base to add a lucrative stream of revenue once development really kicks into gear with applications built upon its blockchain layer.

I just bridged some ETH to Base. Try it – it’s quite simple https://t.co/4KOiiU4Pps
(You can also do it from @CoinbaseWallet)

Layer 2 feels great – changes the usability of crypto.

Plus you get this sweet NFThttps://t.co/nvtkeCBjWu

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) August 9, 2023

#BTC is not yet at the resistance it needs to break to invalidate the Higher High

And the RSI has not yet broken the downtrend it needs to invalidate the Weekly Bearish Divergence

Nice to see BTC back at $30,000 but no real trend shift has occurred yet$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ZOu5QrSBVc

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) August 9, 2023

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• FLEX Coin (FLEX), (market cap: US$785 million) +13%

• Aptos (APT), (market cap: US$1.62 billion) +10%

• Rocket Pool (RPL), (market cap: US$536 million) +9%

• Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: US$519 million) +5%

• Chainlink (LINK), (market cap: US$4.14 billion) +4%

SLUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Rollbit Coin (RLB), (market cap: US$505 million) -9%

• XDC Network (XDC), (market cap: US$861 million) -8%

• Optimism (OP), (market cap: US$1.11 billion) -8%

• Hedera (HBAR), (market cap: US$1.95 billion) -3%

• Injective (INJ), (market cap: US$663 million) -3%

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe has a suggestion for you for the next crypto bull cycle (strictly not financial advice, of course). And it comes in the shape of a popular dog meme…

I present to you: the easiest trade of them all this cycle, $DOGE. pic.twitter.com/ePFRi19Ro0

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) August 9, 2023

An interestingly negative take here on the state of NFTs right now from “NFT God”…

Here’s why almost everyone hates NFTs and crypto:

They solve almost 0 real world problems

Right now the only problem solved by anything blockchain related is quicker and cheaper transaction times

That’s it

Here’s a list of every problem NFTs solve:… pic.twitter.com/dNNwhPPtZd

— NFT God (@NFT_GOD) August 9, 2023

Speaking of NFT projects…

Y00ts just announced its departure from Polygon.

Here’s what this means for y00ts and what you can expect to see in the coming weeks.

(1/11) pic.twitter.com/OXxGpaKwFD

— Kermit (@crypto__kermit) August 9, 2023