According to in-depth on-chain data analysis, while researching the top 100 wallets by LINK holdings, I discovered an unusual pattern.
Multiple wallets hold almost exactly the same amount of LINK, approximately 2 million tokens each, and hold no other assets. Initially, I identified 8 to 9 such wallets, but further investigation revealed these were just the tip of the iceberg.
Ultimately, I found a total of 48 wallets with nearly identical LINK balances and highly consistent transaction patterns. Based on this consistency, I believe they are all controlled by the same entity.
In other words, between August 2025 and January 2026, a certain entity accumulated approximately 100 million LINK, accounting for 10% of its total supply.
Clearly, this entity went to great lengths to remain hidden. Its accumulation strategy was meticulously designed to avoid drawing attention or affecting the market price.
Why Conclude These Wallets Belong to the Same Entity?
Several key pieces of evidence support this:
· Each wallet holds about 2 million LINK.
· All wallets were created between August and November 2025.
· All purchases originated from the same Coinbase hot wallet address: 0xA9D1e08C7793af67e9d92fe308d5697FB81d3E43.
The most compelling evidence is the transaction heatmap comparison. The heatmaps of these wallets are strikingly similar, executing a similar number 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 ones were more gradual. But after the initial period, all wallets began making consistent purchases on the same dates each month.
For example, observing wallets 54, 55, and 56, the August data is slightly different, but the transaction behavior from September to January is almost completely synchronized. This pattern repeats across all 48 wallets, as if operating on the same schedule.
Why Did the Market Not React to the Accumulation of 10% of the Supply?
The answer is simple: the entity竭力 (strived) to avoid disturbing the market.
They used anonymous wallets with no public institutional links and structured their purchases in batches to avoid sudden spikes in demand. The goal was clear: accumulate LINK discreetly without triggering market follow-ups or speculation.
To achieve this, they leveraged a rare market event.
The Market Crash of October 10th
According to Raoul Pal, market makers were unable to access APIs at that time, causing a severe imbalance in the crypto market. Simultaneously, tariff concerns triggered panic selling, flooding the order books with sell orders. With a lack of buyers to absorb them, the market went into a free fall.
To prevent a complete collapse, trading platforms were forced to intervene, placing a significant number of buy orders to absorb the selling pressure, thereby accumulating a large inventory of crypto assets.
In the weeks following the crash, these assets were gradually released back into the market throughout October and November, creating sustained selling pressure and unusually abundant liquidity.
This was the perfect timing for discreet accumulation.
The entity behind these wallets used this liquidity window to heavily absorb LINK while avoiding pushing up the price. It is worth noting that 39 of the 48 wallets were created precisely in October and November, the period of highest liquidity.
Two Possible Motives
First, opportunistic accelerated accumulation. The entity saw the market crash as a rare chance to speed up its accumulation progress, a process that might otherwise have taken many more months.
Second, an emergency strategic reserve. The entity may have had an urgent need to acquire LINK and used the liquidity to complete its position discreetly, avoiding price volatility. Whether this urgency stemmed from strategic needs or external pressure is currently unclear.
Impact on Exchange Balances
The buying spree from the new wallets highly coincides with the sharp drop in LINK balances on exchanges shown by CryptoQuant data from October to November.
This decline corresponds exactly to the creation of 39 new wallets, each accumulating about 2 million LINK during this period.
Who Could Be the Entity Behind This?
The range of possibilities for an entity accumulating 10% of the LINK supply is significantly narrowed.
Chainlink Labs
Low probability. Chainlink officially holds about 300 million LINK as non-circulating supply, which is publicly labeled and accounted for in planning. Furthermore, Chainlink has publicly announced weekly buybacks of $1 million worth of LINK; secretly hoarding nearly $1 billion worth of LINK simultaneously would contradict its public stance.
However, the timing is noteworthy: accumulation began on August 11, 2025, just 4 days after the announcement of the Chainlink reserve mechanism, which might have signaled long-term optimism to the outside world.
BlackRock
This is one of the more plausible speculations. With $14 trillion in assets under management, BlackRock has repeatedly stated that tokenization is the future of financial markets. Its BUIDL fund, exceeding $3 billion, heavily relies on Chainlink's CCIP, Proof of Reserve, and data services.
Holding 100 million LINK could help it secure a strategic position in tokenization infrastructure. Relative to its size, this allocation is not large but is significant. Secret accumulation also makes sense; announcing a large purchase upfront would significantly drive up the price.
JPMorgan Chase
Also a strong possibility. This trillion-dollar asset bank is rapidly expanding its blockchain division (Kinexys, formerly Onyx) and has become one of the most active traditional institutions in the field of tokenized assets and cross-chain finance.
Its tokenized money market, fund flow projects, and multiple public chain settlements in 2025 all rely on Chainlink's CCIP, runtime environment, and oracle data streams. Holding 100 million LINK could help establish a strategic position in interoperability and oracle infrastructure between its permissioned chains and public chains, ensuring priority access, staking rewards, and reducing dependency risks.
Interestingly, JPMorgan's actions around the October 10th crash are worth pondering. Just days before the crash, the bank issued a bearish report, warning of the vulnerability of crypto-related stocks amid geopolitical risks. Although the crash was primarily caused by external factors, the combination of the bearish report and the subsequent liquidity vacuum leads to speculation that large institutions might have taken the opportunity to build positions discreetly.
Financial Infrastructure Institutions (e.g., DTCC, SWIFT)
Low probability. Such institutions typically do not hold strategic token reserves. More importantly, if Chainlink is to become a core part of their future infrastructure, it is unlikely that DTCC or SWIFT would tolerate an unknown entity controlling 10% of the LINK supply—this would pose an unacceptable systemic risk.
Another detail is worth noting:
All 48 wallets were created between August and November 2025, with the last one established on November 20th—just two days before SWIFT's activation of the new ISO 20022 standard, a project in which Chainlink is a participant.
The coincidence in timing, while not conclusive evidence of causality, is hard to ignore. If LINK is to play an important role in future financial communication, settlement, or interoperability infrastructure, establishing a strategic reserve beforehand is undoubtedly a reasonable long-term布局 (layout).
For institutions aiming for long-term integration rather than short-term speculation, locking in supply early reduces execution risk, mitigates price impact, and lessens dependence on future market liquidity.
High-Net-Worth Individuals
Extremely low probability. 100 million LINK is worth over $1 billion. The number of individuals who can mobilize capital of this magnitude is极小 (extremely small), and concentrating it into a single crypto asset without a clear strategic purpose is even rarer.
My View
I believe this is almost certainly the work of a large institution. Without deep market knowledge and institutional-grade execution capability, it is impossible to accumulate 10% of the supply without moving the price.
Increasing purchases during the high-liquidity period following the October 10th crash particularly points to institutional behavior. They knew high liquidity allowed frequent buying without raising the price. This level of coordination is far beyond the capability of the average individual investor.
It is also noteworthy that the accumulation amount is exactly 100 million LINK, precisely one-tenth of the total supply. This shows the scale was intentionally set, not randomly accumulated, reflecting a long-term strategic intent for the project.
Accumulating 100 million LINK is unlikely to be for speculative purposes alone. It预示着 (suggests) the token may have practical application scenarios in the future. The entity seems to be preparing for a future where Chainlink underpins critical financial infrastructure and is building reserves accordingly.
Until the entity's identity is revealed, uncertainty remains. But the fact that a single entity may have accumulated 10% of the LINK supply for future use is significantly bullish in itself.
What Happens Next?
If the buyer is a large institution, the subsequent impact could be very positive. Other asset management companies and infrastructure providers might scramble to build their own LINK reserves, but replicating this slow, discreet accumulation process is almost impossible. Latecomers may be forced to buy at high prices, significantly driving up the price.
At the same time, concentration risk cannot be ignored. Controlling 10% of the supply implies significant influence, and with the entity's intentions unclear, its future actions remain a key variable.
The following points are clear:
· This accumulation is real.
· Its strategy is highly sophisticated.
· The scale involved is extraordinary.
Whether this is early positioning by a large institution or something else, it is one of the most noteworthy on-chain patterns in LINK's history.
