Chainlink’s Enhanced Crypto-Staking Program Attracts Over $632 Million in LINK Tokens, Hits Capacity in Record Time

Chainlink, a leading blockchain data-oracle project, recently experienced significant growth with its updated crypto-staking program, drawing substantial interest and investment from the community. The program, dubbed “V0.2,” launched for early access at 12 p.m. Eastern Time. Within just 30 minutes, about 32.8 million LINK, Chainlink’s native token, had been staked by participants. This rapid engagement continued, and by six hours into the early-access period, the community pool reached its new, increased capacity of 40.875 million LINK.

This enthusiastic response resulted in over $632 million worth of LINK being staked, a significant achievement for Chainlink. The price of LINK responded positively to this development, rising 12% in the following 24 hours to a value of $16.72, as reported by CoinDesk.

The expansion of the staking pool capacity is a key part of this new phase. The limit has been raised to 45 million LINK from the previous 25 million in version 0.1. This total includes both the community pool and a separate pool for node operators. Currently, 1.8 million LINK are staked in the node operator pool, which has a capacity of 4.125 million LINK.

A noteworthy aspect of this update is the migration of 21.9 million LINK from the earlier version of the staking program to the new one. Chainlink’s staking mechanism is a central component of what the company refers to as Economics 2.0. This initiative aims to enhance the security and efficiency of the Chainlink system.

Through Chainlink staking, node operators, who are responsible for retrieving external data, along with community members, can contribute to the robustness of oracle services by staking LINK tokens. Participants in the staking program are also eligible for rewards.

Sergey Nazarov, the co-founder of Chainlink, highlighted the importance of this new staking version in a press release. He emphasized that “Staking v0.2 introduces important new security features and sets the system up for even further growth in the year to come.” This statement underscores the strategic direction of Chainlink and its commitment to enhancing the security and scalability of its platform.