Chainlink (LINK) has surged back into the spotlight across crypto social channels. New data suggest that the oracle project registered a five-week high in social volume following renewed attention on its expanding 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 objective is to reduce one of the main limitations for bringing traditional financial markets onto blockchain networks.

Growing Hype

This has naturally generated a considerable amount of hype around the LINK token, which remains a central figure in discussions around tokenized finance.

According to the latest findings by Santiment, there has been a spike in social volume even as the wider market remained under pressure. This indicated that investors and traders have been paying close attention to Chainlink for its infrastructure narrative rather than treating it as just another altcoin moving in lockstep with Bitcoin.

Additionally, over the past month, the ratio of selling-focused versus buying-focused mentions has been steadily rising, 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 weighted toward 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 significant GitHub events. These events have been trending upward consistently since the project’s launch.

Is LINK “Deeply Undervalued”?

But even as online sentiment tilts more cautiously, some industry leaders believe the project remains seriously underestimated. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, for one, recently said that Chainlink is one of the most important yet 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.

Hougan says many investors still view 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 went on to argue that Chainlink holds a dominant market share across key infrastructure services and supports major crypto sectors like stablecoins, DeFi, tokenization, and prediction markets. Hougan also pointed to the adoption by major institutions, including SWIFT, JPMorgan, Visa, Fidelity, and DTCC.

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