谁在暗中囤积1亿枚LINK？
Who is secretly accumulating 100 million LINK tokens behind the scenes?

Author: LinkBoi

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Based on in-depth on-chain data analysis, I discovered an abnormal pattern while studying the top 100 wallets by LINK holdings.

Multiple wallets hold nearly identical amounts of LINK, each about 2 million, and do not hold other assets. Initially, I identified 8 to 9 similar wallets, but further investigation revealed that these were just the tip of the iceberg.

Eventually, I found a total of 48 wallets with almost identical LINK balances and highly consistent trading patterns. Based on this uniformity, I believe they are controlled by the same entity.

In other words, between August 2025 and January 2026, an entity accumulated approximately 100 million LINK, accounting for 10% of the total supply.

It is clear that this entity is making great efforts to remain hidden. Its accumulation strategy is carefully designed to avoid attracting attention or impacting market prices.

Why do we believe these wallets belong to the same entity?

There are several key pieces of evidence:

• Each wallet holds about 2 million LINK.
• All wallets were created between August and November 2025.
• All purchases came from the same Coinbase hot wallet address: 0xA9D1e08C7793af67e9d92fe308d5697FB81d3E43.

The most convincing evidence is the comparison of transaction heatmaps. These wallets’ heatmaps are astonishingly similar, executing comparable amounts of LINK transactions on the same dates, following the same accumulation rhythm.

There are slight timing differences: wallets created later made larger initial purchases, while earlier wallets accumulated more gradually. But after the initial phase, all wallets began monthly purchases on the same dates.

For example, observe wallets 54, 55, and 56. August data differ slightly, but from September to January, their trading behaviors are nearly perfectly synchronized. This pattern repeats across all 48 wallets, as if operating on the same schedule.

Link shows these 48 wallets and their transaction heatmaps for readers to verify themselves.

Why does the market show no reaction to a 10% supply accumulation?

The answer is simple: this entity is deliberately avoiding market disturbance.

They use anonymous wallets with no public institutional ties and structure their purchases in batches to prevent sudden demand spikes. Their goal is clear: discreetly accumulate LINK without triggering market FOMO or speculation.

To do this, they exploited a rare market event.

Market crash on October 10

According to Raoul Pal, market makers were unable to access APIs at that time, causing severe imbalance in the crypto markets. Meanwhile, concerns over tariffs triggered panic selling, flooding order books with sell orders. Due to a lack of buyers, the market experienced a free-fall decline.

To prevent a total collapse, exchanges intervened by placing large buy orders to absorb selling pressure, resulting in a backlog of crypto assets.

In the weeks following the crash, these assets were gradually released back into the market in October and November, creating persistent selling pressure and unusually abundant liquidity.

This was an excellent opportunity for secret accumulation.

The entities behind these wallets used the liquidity window to absorb large amounts of LINK while avoiding pushing prices higher. Notably, 39 of the 48 wallets were created during the peak liquidity months of October and November.

Two possible motivations

One is opportunistic accelerated accumulation. The entity viewed the market crash as a rare chance to speed up their accumulation, which might otherwise take months.

The other is an emergency strategic reserve. They may urgently need to acquire LINK and used the liquidity from the crash to quietly build their position, avoiding price volatility. Whether this urgency stems from strategic needs or external pressure remains unclear.

Impact on exchange balances

The buying spree of new wallets aligns closely with the sharp decline in exchange LINK balances from October to November as shown by CryptoQuant data.

This decline coincides exactly with the creation of 39 new wallets, each accumulating about 2 million LINK during this period.

Who could be the behind-the-scenes entity?

The scope of possible entities that could accumulate 10% of LINK supply has been significantly narrowed.

Chainlink Labs

Less likely. Chainlink’s official holdings are about 300 million LINK as a non-circulating supply, which is publicly documented and part of their planned reserves. Chainlink has also publicly announced weekly buybacks of $1 million worth of LINK. Accumulating nearly $1 billion in secret would contradict their public stance.

However, the timing is noteworthy: accumulation began on August 11, 2025, just four days after Chainlink announced its reserve mechanism, possibly signaling a long-term bullish outlook.

BlackRock

A plausible hypothesis. With over $14 trillion in assets under management, BlackRock has repeatedly stated that tokenization is the future of financial markets. Its $3 billion+ BUIDL fund heavily relies on Chainlink’s CCIP, reserve proofs, and data services.

Holding 100 million LINK could help it secure a strategic position within tokenization infrastructure. Relative to its size, this allocation is modest but significant. Secret accumulation makes sense—if they publicly bought in large amounts, it would likely spike prices.

JPMorgan

Also a possibility. This trillion-dollar bank is rapidly expanding its blockchain division (Kinexys, formerly Onyx), becoming one of the most active traditional institutions in tokenized assets and cross-chain finance.

Its tokenized money markets, liquidity projects, and multiple public chain settlements in 2025 depend on Chainlink’s CCIP, runtime environment, and oracle data streams. Holding 100 million LINK would help establish a strategic position in interoperability and oracle infrastructure between its permissioned and public chains, ensuring priority access, staking yields, and reducing dependency risks.

Interestingly, JPMorgan’s actions around the October 10 crash are worth noting. A few days before the crash, the bank issued a bearish report warning about the vulnerability of crypto-related stocks amid geopolitical risks. Although the crash was mainly caused by external factors, the bearish report and liquidity vacuum suggest that large institutions might have been quietly building positions.

Financial infrastructure organizations (e.g., DTCC, SWIFT)

Less likely. These organizations typically do not hold strategic token reserves. More importantly, if Chainlink becomes part of their core future infrastructure, DTCC or SWIFT would unlikely tolerate an unknown entity controlling 10% of LINK supply—this would pose unacceptable systemic risk.

Another detail worth noting:

All 48 wallets were created between August and November 2025, with the last one on November 20—just two days before SWIFT’s rollout of the new ISO 20022 standard, of which Chainlink is a participant.

While the timing is coincidental and not causal evidence, it’s hard to ignore. If LINK is to play a key role in future financial communication, settlement, or interoperability infrastructure, establishing strategic reserves beforehand is a rational long-term move.

For institutions aiming for long-term integration rather than short-term speculation, locking in supply early reduces execution risk, mitigates price shocks, and lessens reliance on future market liquidity.

High-net-worth individuals

Highly unlikely. Valued at over $1 billion, the 100 million LINK would require mobilizing an enormous amount of capital—rare for individuals. Concentrating such a large amount into a single crypto asset without a clear strategic purpose is even more uncommon.

My view

I believe this is almost certainly the work of large institutions. Without deep market understanding and institutional-level execution, it would be impossible to accumulate 10% of the supply without moving the price.

The increased buying during the high-liquidity period after the October 10 crash strongly points to institutional activity. They understand that high liquidity allows frequent buying without pushing prices up. This level of coordination far exceeds typical individual investors’ capabilities.

It’s also notable that the total accumulated amount is exactly 100 million LINK, precisely 10% of the total supply. This suggests deliberate scale setting rather than random accumulation, reflecting a long-term strategic intent for the project.

Accumulating 100 million LINK is unlikely to be purely speculative. It indicates potential future real-world applications for the token. The entity seems to be preparing for Chainlink’s role in supporting critical financial infrastructure and building reserves accordingly.

Until the entity’s identity is revealed, uncertainty remains. But the fact that a single entity has accumulated 10% of LINK supply carries significant bullish implications.

What’s next?

If the buyer is a large institution, the subsequent impact could be very positive. Other asset managers and infrastructure providers might rush to establish their own LINK reserves, but replicating this slow, secretive accumulation process is nearly impossible. Later entrants may be forced to buy at higher prices, significantly boosting the market.

At the same time, concentration risk cannot be ignored. Controlling 10% of the supply gives enormous influence, and with the entity’s intentions unclear, its future moves remain a key variable.

The following points are certain:

• This accumulation is real.
• Its strategy is highly sophisticated.
• The scale involved is extraordinary.

Whether this is early positioning by a large institution or another scenario, it’s one of the most noteworthy on-chain patterns in LINK history.