The price of the Chainlink token, LINK, records a strong increase during the first day of this Monday. At its peak of the day, the asset reached $19.17 per unit, with a positive performance close to 15%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. This movement becomes one of the most marked rallies within the overall recovery day of the crypto market.

The drivers behind the LINK surge are mainly two. The first is the general bounce led by Bitcoin, which managed to recover the barrier of $110,000 per unit, rekindling optimism across the ecosystem. The second factor comes from accumulation by large holders or whales.

According to on-chain data, these wallets are buying large amounts of LINK, creating strong buying pressure that spreads to the retail market. Additionally, the enthusiasm has shifted to leveraged derivative traders, who are opening massive long positions on the asset.

So far, long positions exceed $340 million, compared to the previous $285 million. However, a considerable number of traders have also opened short positions on Hyperliquid, according to Cryptopolitan, anticipating a possible correction. This demonstrates that the current rally has a significant speculative component, which raises the risk of abrupt pullbacks.

Will the price of LINK rise to $30?

For the most optimistic analysts, the chances of Chainlink reaching $30 are still present. However, the increase in short positions by 24% suggests caution. Thus, although the token could approach that figure, it is likely to go through a corrective phase first.

At the time of writing, LINK is priced at $18.99, with a daily positive return of 9.7% and a weekly loss of 3.6%. The rebound in recent hours has significantly reduced the accumulated drops during the week.

On the other hand, on-chain data confirms an increase in purchases by large investors. During the last week, new wallets accumulated more than $116 million in LINK, with tokens acquired on a certain exchange platform and then distributed across 30 different addresses.

According to a report from a certain platform, the total reserves of LINK there amount to 62 million tokens. This implies that recent withdrawals represent approximately 10% of that total, a fact that reinforces the bullish sentiment around the price of Chainlink.