Chainlink: How long can bulls defend LINK’s $11.90 support?

ambcryptoPublished on 2026-01-23Last updated on 2026-01-23

Abstract

Chainlink (LINK) is showing signs of a potential bullish rally, with traders eyeing a key support level at $11.90. A hold above this historically significant zone could trigger a 15% upward move toward $14. This optimistic outlook is supported by strong long-leveraged positions, a 26% surge in trading volume, and Chainlink’s leading position in DeFi development activity, which boosts long-term investor confidence. Despite trading below the 50-day EMA, past trends suggest an upside is possible. Derivatives data indicates strong bullish sentiment, with traders heavily betting against a drop below $11.88.

As sentiment begins to shift following U.S. President Donald Trump’s removal of tariffs on European countries, Chainlink [LINK] is now eyeing a strong upside rally.

This bullish outlook is further reinforced by traders’ strong conviction in long-leveraged positions, favorable price action, and Chainlink’s position as one of the top DeFi projects in terms of development.

Recently, on-chain analytics firm Santiment disclosed that Chainlink topped DeFi projects in terms of development activity.

This suggests that Chainlink’s developers are more active than those of other DeFi projects, indicating the protocol is continuously being built and improved, with stronger security and reliability.

This level of development activity strengthens investors’ long-term confidence in the project.

On the 22nd of January, LINK was trading at $12.40, up 1.05% over the past 24 hours. Despite this modest gain, traders have shown strong interest in the asset, as trading volume jumped 26% to $522.29 million.

Chainlink: Price action and upcoming levels

LINK, on the daily chart, appeared to be hovering near a strong key support at $11.90 at the time of writing. This level has a solid history of price reversals and has been respected since November 2025.

During this period, LINK has recorded more than four reversals from this zone and now appears poised to repeat its historical behavior once again.

Based on the current price action, if LINK holds above the $11.90 level, as it has in the past, it could see a strong 15% upside move and may reach the $14 level in the coming days.

As of the time of writing, LINK remained below the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA), which suggests that bearish momentum remains intact, and the price could face continued downside pressure in the near term.

However, in the past, when LINK traded below the 50 EMA, it still recorded upside moves. It will be interesting to see whether history repeats itself this time.

Traders eye long-leveraged positions

At the same time, intraday traders appeared to be following historical trends, as bets on long-leveraged positions continued to rise, according to derivatives data from CoinGlass.

LINK’s Exchange Liquidation Map showed that traders were heavily over-leveraged at $11.88 on the lower side (support) and $12.72 on the upper side (resistance).

At these levels, traders have built $7.81 million worth of long-leveraged positions and $2.08 million worth of short-leveraged positions.

This clearly indicates that intraday traders are currently bullish on LINK and strongly believe the asset is unlikely to fall below the $11.88 level anytime soon.

Final Thoughts

Chainlink looks poised for a 15% upside move if it sustains above the key support level of $11.90.
Intraday traders’ bullish bets, the recent removal of tariffs on European countries, and strong DeFi development activity further reinforced LINK’s bullish outlook.

Zcash Suffers Historic Collapse As Billions Vanish From Market Value

Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, suffered a historic collapse in price, losing over 50% of its value in 24 hours and erasing billions from its market cap. The dramatic sell-off was triggered by the disclosure of a major vulnerability in the Zcash Orchard privacy pool that had remained undetected since May 2022. A security researcher, using AI, developed a proof-of-concept to generate counterfeit ZEC. While the bug was patched by June 2, Zcash's privacy design makes it impossible to verify if any fake coins were minted before the fix, fueling market panic and uncertainty. This event highlights the trade-off between privacy and transparency. In response, Shielded Labs is exploring a network upgrade to allow supply verification. Despite the crisis, proponents argue that the discovery by world-class security researchers demonstrates the network's commitment to proactive hardening and resilience.

bitcoinist1h ago

Zcash Suffers Historic Collapse As Billions Vanish From Market Value

bitcoinist1h ago

Has the 'Digital Gold' Narrative for BTC Failed?

**Title: Has the "Digital Gold" Narrative for Bitcoin Failed?** The article argues that Bitcoin's "digital gold" narrative remains valid despite a recent sharp price decline (from a peak near $126k in Oct 2025 to briefly under $61k in Feb 2026). It presents a long-term investment framework based on three core points: **1. Viewing Bitcoin as an Asset:** Bitcoin is presented as a superior potential store of value compared to gold. Key arguments are its absolute scarcity (21 million cap), superior portability, and transparent auditability via its public ledger. While acknowledging its current use in early, volatile stages (~3-4% global adoption), the author draws parallels to the early, disruptive phases of the internet and e-commerce. **2. Understanding the Recent Downturn:** The current ~50% correction is framed as a predictable, consensus-driven cycle following its post-halving peak (the 2024 halving preceded the Oct 2025 high). A crucial factor is a historic "changing of hands": the influx of new institutional buyers via ETFs allowed early, low-cost holders (miners, OG believers) to take profits. The author notes that while severe, Bitcoin's historical drawdowns (e.g., 93% in 2011, 77% in 2021-22) have been progressively smaller, suggesting maturing holder structure and decreasing volatility over time. **3. The Long-Term Perspective:** The long-term thesis hinges on Bitcoin capturing a portion of gold's market value. With Bitcoin's market cap at ~$1.4 trillion (at $70k) versus gold's ~$20 trillion, significant upside potential exists if the "digital gold" narrative is partially realized. However, the author strongly cautions that short-term risks remain, the bottom is unpredictable, and high volatility is inherent. The real risk is not Bitcoin failing but poor personal position management (over-leverage, wrong capital) and a lack of deep understanding, which can force investors out during severe downturns. The conclusion uses Amazon's 95% crash post-2000 dot-com bubble and subsequent 42x recovery as an analogy. The ultimate question is not if Bitcoin's price will rise, but if an investor's strategy and conviction can withstand the volatility to see the long-term play out. The recent divergence (gold up, Bitcoin down) is posed not as a narrative failure, but as potential evidence of this ongoing, painful transition from a speculative asset to a mainstream allocation.

marsbit1h ago

Has the 'Digital Gold' Narrative for BTC Failed?

marsbit1h ago

Has BTC's 'Digital Gold' Narrative Failed?

The article discusses Bitcoin's "digital gold" narrative, its recent price drop, and long-term outlook through the perspective of "Jason". It argues the narrative is not a failure but that Bitcoin represents a superior, new asset class due to its fixed supply (21 million), portability, and auditability. The piece compares its current ~3-4% global adoption rate to early internet/e-commerce, suggesting significant growth potential. Regarding the 2025-2026 price decline (from ~$126k to briefly under $61k), the author views it as a predictable, consensus-driven sell-off within Bitcoin's ~4-year cycle post-halving, exacerbated by a major "handover" from early, low-cost holders to new institutional buyers via ETFs. A key observation is that historical peak-to-trough drawdowns have lessened over time (e.g., 93% in 2011 to ~50% in 2026), indicating maturing volatility as holder structure changes. For the long term, the author uses a simple framework: Bitcoin's total market cap (~$1.4T at $70k) is only about 7% of gold's (~$20T). Even capturing 30-50% of gold's value would imply substantial upside. However, the article strongly cautions against viewing this as investment advice, emphasizing extreme volatility and the critical importance of risk management, position sizing, and deep fundamental understanding to survive severe drawdowns. It concludes by drawing a parallel to Amazon's 95% crash in 2000 and subsequent 42x recovery, stressing that the key is surviving market cycles to realize long-term potential.

链捕手1h ago

Has BTC's 'Digital Gold' Narrative Failed?

链捕手1h ago

From Code to Cognition: A Ten-Thousand-Word Guide to the Evolution of the Robot Brain

"From Code to Cognition: The Evolution of Robot Brains" The journey of robotic intelligence has shifted dramatically from manually coded systems to AI-driven brains. For decades, robots relied on layered software stacks—perception, state estimation, planning, control—each handcrafted. While predictable, they lacked adaptability. The 2010s saw deep learning revolutionize perception (e.g., object detection) and control (via reinforcement learning), but learned skills remained narrow. The arrival of Large Language Models (LLMs) marked a turning point. LLMs acted as high-level planners, interpreting natural language instructions and generating sequences of actions for traditional robotic systems to execute. However, true integration came with Visual-Language-Action (VLA) models, which fused vision, language, and motion prediction into a single network. Pioneered by models like RT-2 and open-source projects like OpenVLA, VLAs enable robots to reason and act directly from visual input and commands. The most advanced humanoid robots now employ a "dual-brain" architecture: a slow-thinking, large VLA (System 2) for reasoning and planning, and a fast-reacting, small network (System 1) for high-frequency motion control, sometimes with an even lower-level System 0 for balance. This split balances cognition with the physics of real-time movement. Computation is split between onboard hardware (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson) for safety-critical control loops and cloud/edge servers for non-critical tasks like learning and interfaces. A crucial driver is the open-source ecosystem—models like GR00T and OpenVLA allow startups to build upon pre-trained brains and fine-tune them with their own data, accelerating development. Despite progress, current systems struggle with recovery from errors, sample inefficiency, and long-horizon tasks. This has spurred the rise of **World Models**—neural networks that predict the consequences of actions. By simulating possible futures before acting (like NVIDIA Cosmos or Meta V-JEPA), robots can plan, recover, and generalize better. This represents the next frontier: shifting intelligence from learned reactions to an internal model of physics and cause-and-effect. The field is rapidly evolving. While not yet at its "ChatGPT moment," the convergence of cheaper hardware, scalable simulation, and world models points toward robots that are increasingly capable, adaptive, and useful. The question is shifting from "what can robots do?" to "what *should* they do?"

marsbit2h ago

From Code to Cognition: A Ten-Thousand-Word Guide to the Evolution of the Robot Brain

marsbit2h ago

AI Bubble Is Bursting

The AI Bubble is Bursting: A Necessary Purge on the Path to Ubiquitous Intelligence Market volatility has reignited debates about an AI bubble, with figures like Ray Dalio pointing to high valuations. However, this parallels the dot-com bubble, which, despite its crash, laid the physical infrastructure for today's internet era. The current AI investment frenzy, with tech giants planning trillions in infrastructure spending far outstripping current AI application revenues, appears similarly imbalanced. This 'bubble' is seen as an inevitable phase for a disruptive technology, paying the "innovation tax." Critically, AI inference costs have plummeted over 99.7% since 2023, making intelligence nearly free at the margin. This hasn't reduced spending but has instead unlocked massive new demand, as seen in enterprise AI cloud expenditure tripling. This follows the Jevons Paradox: efficiency gains lead to greater total consumption. The market is now entering a cleansing phase, weeding out speculative ventures lacking real moats. The deeper shift is a move from capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware to value creation in operational expenditure (OpEx) through AI applications that solve real industry problems. While infrastructure valuations are high, rapid earnings growth from widespread AI adoption across sectors—from manufacturing and finance to law and healthcare—may digest these valuations over time. Ultimately, this creative destruction will leave behind robust infrastructure and optimized models, cheaply powering an AI-augmented future for all industries, much as the internet became indispensable after its own bubble burst. The core productive potential remains undiminished.

链捕手2h ago

Trading

Spot

Futures

Hot Articles

How to Buy LINK

Welcome to HTX.com! We've made purchasing ChainLink (LINK) simple and convenient. Follow our step-by-step guide to embark on your crypto journey.Step 1: Create Your HTX AccountUse your email or phone number to sign up for a free account on HTX. Experience a hassle-free registration journey and unlock all features.Get My AccountStep 2: Go to Buy Crypto and Choose Your Payment MethodCredit/Debit Card: Use your Visa or Mastercard to buy ChainLink (LINK) instantly.Balance: Use funds from your HTX account balance to trade seamlessly.Third Parties: We've added popular payment methods such as Google Pay and Apple Pay to enhance convenience.P2P: Trade directly with other users on HTX.Over-the-Counter (OTC): We offer tailor-made services and competitive exchange rates for traders.Step 3: Store Your ChainLink (LINK)After purchasing your ChainLink (LINK), store it in your HTX account. Alternatively, you can send it elsewhere via blockchain transfer or use it to trade other cryptocurrencies.Step 4: Trade ChainLink (LINK)Easily trade ChainLink (LINK) on HTX's spot market. Simply access your account, select your trading pair, execute your trades, and monitor in real-time. We offer a user-friendly experience for both beginners and seasoned traders.

9.1k Total ViewsPublished 2024.03.29Updated 2026.06.02

Chainlink In-Depth Research Report: From Oracle to On-Chain Financial Infrastructure, LINK's Flywheel Mechanism and Future Pathways

As the flagship project of the decentralized oracle network, Chainlink has gradually become irreplaceable in the crypto industry since its launch in 2017.

4.2k Total ViewsPublished 2025.08.28Updated 2025.08.28

Chainlink In-Depth Research Report: From Oracle to On-Chain Financial Infrastructure, LINK's Flywheel Mechanism and Future Pathways

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of LINK (LINK) are presented below.