Chainlink (LINK) price eyes 35% upside as whales accumulate near key resistance

Chainlink price appears to be shaping a bullish reversal setup as whales accumulate the token near a key resistance level. The setup could potentially spark a rally toward $24 or higher in the coming days.

According to data from crypto.news, Chainlink (LINK) has slipped 7.5% over the past week and is down about 25% from its October peak. Currently trading around $17.74, the token has fallen roughly 36% from its year‑to‑date high when viewed on a broader timeframe.

Still, despite the recent pullback, market sentiment around Chainlink began shifting positively on Oct. 21, fueled by a series of bullish developments that have put the token back in the spotlight.

In an Oct. 20 X post, the Chainlink team highlighted that its oracle services remained fully operational during the widespread Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage observed on Monday that disrupted large parts of the internet. This included major trading platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood, both of which rely heavily on centralized cloud infrastructure. 

The project’s resilience has reignited interest in Chainlink, as it successfully showcased the reliability and robustness of decentralized systems compared to centralized counterparts, boosting demand for its token.

Chainlink is a leading provider of decentralized oracle services, and its network of node operators, backed by cryptographic guarantees and a reputation-based incentive model, has delivered a level of reliability that many other oracle solutions have struggled to match.

As such, Chainlink has become the go-to oracle provider for systems where data integrity is critical.

In its recently released Q3 report, Chainlink Labs highlighted several major partnerships, including collaborations with interbank messaging giant Swift, U.S. clearinghouse DTCC, and its European counterpart Euroclear. The report also mentioned a pilot project with the U.S. Department of Commerce aimed at bringing government data on-chain.

Chainlink also used the update to shed light on its expanding vision that is transitioning from a pure oracle solution into a full-stack infrastructure platform powering tokenized assets and real-world applications.

Meanwhile, data from DeFiLlama shows that Chainlink continues to dominate the oracle landscape, securing over $92.58 billion in total value, around 68% of the entire market. Its closest rival, Chronicle, lags far behind with $10.5 billion in TVS.

A big upcoming development for Chainlink that has also boosted visibility for the token is Chainlink cofounder Sergey Nazarov’s inclusion in the Federal Reserve’s conference on payments innovation, scheduled for Oct. 21. Alongside representatives from Paxos, Circle, and Coinbase, Nazarov is expected to speak on the role of decentralized technologies in building more secure and transparent payment systems.

Such developments have caught the attention of both retail traders and whales, many of whom seem to be positioning early in anticipation of further growth and long-term potential for the project.

Backing this up, data from Santiment shows that whale wallets holding between 100k and 100 million LINK have steadily increased their holdings over the past three days. This accumulation trend is further reinforced by data from Nansen, which reveals notable exchange outflows. 

Source: Santiment

Specifically, the balance of LINK held across centralized exchanges dropped by 3.8% over the past week, bringing the total down to 269.6 million tokens, a sign that investors may be moving their assets into self-custody, typically seen as a bullish signal.

On the daily chart, Chainlink price appears to have formed a double bottom pattern, a structure often viewed as a bullish reversal, signaling that the recent selling pressure may be easing as buyers step in to defend a key support zone.

Chainlink price has formed a bullish reversal pattern on the daily chart — Oct. 21 | Source: crypto.news

The immediate resistance to watch lies near $20.24, which marks the neckline of this potential reversal formation. Interestingly, this level also lines up with the 50% Fibonacci retracement zone, adding more weight to its importance.

If LINK manages to break above this neckline while the RSI also pushes through its descending trendline resistance, it would likely add strong confirmation to the bullish setup. As of press time, the MACD lines were trending upward, suggesting that momentum is gradually shifting in favor of the bulls.

A confirmed breakout from this double bottom pattern could open the doors for a rally toward $24, which is derived by projecting the depth of the pattern above the neckline level. The target lies 35% above the current price level.

However, if LINK fails to hold above support and drops below $16.47, a level that corresponds with the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement, the bullish structure would be invalidated, possibly exposing the token to further downside risk.