Chainlink Holders Staked Tokens Worth $650M Hours After Early Access Launch

Holders of Chainlink’s LINK flocked to stake their tokens on the blockchain oracle provider’s upgraded staking system.

The entire community pool allocation of 40,875,000 LINK, worth more than $650M, was filled during the Staking v0.2 early access phase. An additional 19 million LINK tokens were staked in under 7 hours after the launch.

Token holders who want to stake their LINK tokens will now have to wait for existing stakers to exit the pool. The same applies for the public as general access is granted starting Dec.11.

Currently, the staking reward stands at 4.32% APR, according to Chainlink’s website.

Migrating Stakers

Over half of the community pool allocation was filled before the early access phase began by stakers who migrated from Staking v0.1 to Staking v0.2. These users were given priority as they had stricter criteria to fulfill to be eligible to stake in Staking v0.1.

Initially, the maximum pool size is capped at 45 million LINK. Community stakers were allocated 40,875,000 and the remainder went to node operators.

Many users are skeptical of new token holders getting the chance to stake. Meanwhile, others were impressed by the active community participation.

Staking v0.2

Chainlink’s Staking v0.2 offers greater flexibility and enhances security for the Chainlink ecosystem.

The price of Chainlink’s LINK token is up 10% in the past 24 hours and has shot up 22% in the past 30 days.

In October, Chainlink Labs announced that it had conducted a proof of concept run to alleviate global trade inefficiencies in collaboration with telecom giant Vodafone’s Digital Asset Broker, who also became a Chainlink node operator.

Notably, Grayscale’s Chainlink Trust Shares are still trading at a 200% premium when compared to the price of LINK on spot exchanges.