Chainlink’s social volume reaches its highest level in five weeks after data stream upgrade

Santiment data shows that LINK discussions are increasing despite broader market weakness.

Chainlink (LINK) has returned to the spotlight through social crypto channels. New data suggests that the Oracle Project recorded a spike in social volume in five weeks following renewed attention to its growing role in tokenized finance.

The findings emerged days after Chainlink upgraded its data streams to deliver near real-time US stock and ETF prices, 24 hours a day, five days a week. This development will allow DeFi protocols to track pre-market, regular, after-hours and overnight trading sessions. The main goal is to reduce one of the main limitations for introducing traditional financial markets on blockchain networks.

Growing hype

This has obviously led to significant hype around the LINK token, which still remains a central figure in discussions about tokenized finance.

According to Santiment’s latest findings, there has been a spike in social volume, even as the broader market remained under pressure. This indicated that investors and traders have been keeping a close eye on Chainlink for its infrastructure story, rather than treating it as just another altcoin moving along with Bitcoin.

Additionally, the ratio of sell-oriented versus buy-oriented mentions has been steadily rising over the past month, and bearish commentary is approaching levels not seen in more than a year. While social volume indicates high engagement, the changing ratio highlights that discussions are increasingly emphasizing caution or skepticism.

In terms of development activity, Chainlink continues to rank as the top developing DeFi project by a wide margin, based on several metrics including weekly major GitHub events. These events have been on a consistent upward trend since the project’s launch.

Is LINK “deeply undervalued”?

But even as online sentiment becomes more cautious, some industry leaders believe the project is still seriously underrated. For example, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan recently said that Chainlink is one of the most important but misunderstood crypto assets, and that it may be deeply undervalued. His comments came shortly after Bitwise quietly launched a new Chainlink ETP, which saw modest early trading compared to Bitcoin ETPs.

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Hougan says many investors still see Chainlink as “just a data oracle,” but that description is too narrow. Instead, he frames the project as a fast-growing software platform that connects blockchains to each other and to real-world data and systems.

He further argued that Chainlink has a dominant market share in key infrastructure services and supports major crypto sectors such as stablecoins, DeFi, tokenization and prediction markets. Hougan also pointed to adoption by major institutions, including SWIFT, JPMorgan, Visa, Fidelity and DTCC.