Chainlink Price Crashes Despite SmartCon Deals as Whales Sell

Chainlink price crashed this week, even as the company hosted its premier event in New York, where it announced major deals. LINK token dropped to $14, down sharply from the September high of $27.83. Worse, it has formed a risky pattern, pointing to more downside as whales remain in the sidelines.

Chainlink Price Slips Despite Major SmartCon Deals

The LINK price continued its downtrend this week, mirroring the performance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This crash occurred even as the team hosted a major event at which significant deals were announced.

For example, Monaco, an institutional-grade trading protocol by Sei Labs will use Chainlink for its price feeds and CCIP to enable cross-chain deposits and collateral transfers.

The other major deal came from Securitize and VanEck, which will launch VBILL on Aave Horizon, which will enable tokenized treasuries as on-chain collateral using Chainlink’s platform.

Additionally, SBI Digital Markets selected Chainlink as its infrastructure Partner, a major deal considering that it has over $78 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Chainlink also inked deals with companies like Lido, Lighter, WisdomTree, and S&P Global, a move that solidifies its role as the biggest player in the oracle industry.

These deals are significant as they indicate increased activity in the network. They will also lead to increased on-chain and off-chain fees, which Chainlink will utilize to bolster the Strategic LINK Reserves.

In a statement on Thursday, Chainlink said that it had made the biggest purchase for its Strategic LINK Reserves. It bought 78,252 LINK tokens valued at over $1 million.

This addition increased the total holdings in these reserves to 729,338, equivalent to $10.8 million.

Chainlink launched the Strategic LINK Reserves as more companies were launching their Digital Assets Treasuries (DAT) to accumulate other coins. Its approach is unique in that it utilizes its on-chain and off-chain fees to accumulate its tokens over a long-term horizon.

Why LINK Price Crashed This Week

There are three main reasons why the LINK price crashed despite the company reaching multiple deals at the SmartCon Conference.

First, the crash is mostly because the event happened on the same week that the crypto market crash accelerated, with Bitcoin falling to $100,000 and the market capitalization of all coins moving to $3.4 trillion.

A closer look shows that most tokens were in the red this week. This included top tokens like Ethereum, Tron, and Binance Coin. It is common for most coins to drop whenever Bitcoin is in a freefall.

Second, the LINK crypto price also crashed because the SmartCon event has been scheduled for months, and crypto investors anticipated these deals to be announced. As such, the decline was likely due to investors continuing to sell the news.

Third, the LINK token crashed as whales sold their tokens. Nansen data shows that whale investors hold 2.13 million tokens today, down from the October high of 2.8 million tokens. Whale selling is one of the most common bearish aspects in the crypto market as these investors are more experienced than retail investors.

LINK Crypto Price Technical Analysis

The daily timeframe chart also explains why the LINK price crashed despite inking numerous deals.

This chart indicates that the token has formed a bearish pennant pattern, which consists of a vertical line and a symmetrical triangle. This pattern is one of the most common bearish continuation patterns in technical analysis. It is now forming a smaller bearish pennant pattern, pointing to more downside.

The chart also shows the token formed a death cross pattern as the 50-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages crossed each other.

Additionally, the Average Directional Index (ADX) indicator has moved upward to the current 31, meaning that the downtrend is strengthening.

Therefore, the most likely Chainlink crypto price forecast is one where it continues to fall, potentially to the key support level at $10, its lowest point since June this year.