Today the price of Chainlink (LINK) soared by more than 34% to reach a new all-time high at $8.48 and also notch a market capitalization of $2.5 billion.
Three key factors that likely pushed the price of LINK to a new record high were: high-profile partnerships, price discovery, and the strong momentum that currently drives the altcoin market.
Crypto market weekly price chart. Source: Coin360
Price discovery drives LINK price higher
On July 6, the price of LINK surpassed its previous record high at $5.31 and officially entered a price discovery phase, which typically leads to a “fear of missing out” rally among investors.
Once price discovery occurs and the asset begins to rally to a new peak, the probability of an extended uptrend rises.
Within seven days of LINK recording a new historic high, its price rallied by more than 40% from $5.31 to $8.48.
LINK’s trading volume also rose to levels unseen since April 2020, when the price of Bitcoin (BTC) was recovering from an intense drop to $3,750. At the time, demand for cryptocurrencies from retail investors on Coinbase was surging.
In regards to LINK’s momentum, Cointelegraph contributor Michael van de Poppe said:
“Personal target here at $7.10-7.25 reached since the tweets earlier. Such a beast. Just a matter of time until it reaches the next one at $10. I think that's doable this year.”
LINK-USDT reaches a new all-time high. Source: TradingView
New high profile partnerships
Throughout 2020, Chainlink has secured several high-profile partnerships with companies within the cryptocurrency sector.
On July 8, Chainlink partnered with Nexo, a crypto lender with reportedly 800,000 users, to deploy its oracle solutions. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said:
“We’re excited to bring Chainlink’s secure and reliable oracle solutions to Nexo’s popular lending platform to enable users to independently verify on-chain the interest and collateralization rates they should receive.”
In the past two months, Chainlink has collaborated with blockchain projects and companies including Hedera Hashgraph and Matic Network. Chainlink was also mentioned in a blog post released by Google entitled Building hybrid blockchain/cloud applications with Ethereum and Google Cloud.
Altcoin market continues to gain momentum
Following Ether’s (ETH) rally, the altcoin market as a whole has started to recover. Bitcoin’s stability has provided a strong foundation for altcoins to rebound after a year of stagnation.
Ether price rose from $175 to $240 since the first week of May and it seems that the gradual recovery in it’s price has further enabled the altcoin market to retain its momentum.
Bitcoin dominance slightly decreased in the week. Source: CoinMarketCap.com
Over the past 7-days Bitcoin’s dominance fell from 64.15% to 62.45%, which shows that altcoins have increased in market capitalization.
Earlier this month, traders, like Peter Brandt, forecast that an altcoin season could occur at some point in 2020. The strong performances by leading altcoins, including Cardano (ADA), Chainlink, Tezos (XTZ), and Compound (COMP), has led the sentiment around the crypto market to improve.