Grayscale Chainlink ETF draws $41M in first-day inflows

Grayscale launched the first U.S. spot Chainlink exchange-traded fund on Wednesday, taking in $41 million in first-day net inflows and about $13 million in trading volume. The fund listed on U.S. exchanges and offers exposure to the LINK token through a standard brokerage account.

By the close, the ETF held about $64 million in assets, including an initial $18 million seed allocation, according to market data.

ETF analyst Eric Balchunas described the opening day as “$41m in first day flows,” calling it “another insta-hit” in a post on X.

Another ETF analyst, James Seyffart, characterized the debut as “not a blockbuster” on day one, while noting that “longer tail assets can find success in the ETF wrapper too.”

Early activity topped several recent altcoin ETF starts. A U.S.-listed Solana product saw about $8.2 million in first-day trading volume. A spot XRP ETF recorded $243 million in first-day inflows, the largest among altcoin ETF launches this year.

The Chainlink ETF gives professional and corporate investors a way to access LINK’s price performance without holding the token directly, which can align with investment policies that require regulated vehicles.

LINK is used to compensate validator node operators and to pay for Chainlink’s data services. Chainlink supplies decentralized oracle feeds that deliver real-world data to smart contracts and provides cross-chain messaging used in tokenization and other decentralized finance applications.

As we reported earlier, Grayscale Research said the four-year halving cycle is losing force and that today’s market is driven less by retail and more by ETFs and corporate treasuries accumulating Bitcoin. 

The firm noted pullbacks of 25–30% occur within bull markets and do not alone end trends, citing BTC’s recent slide of about a third. The report also pointed to potential U.S. rate cuts and pending crypto bills as supportive factors investors now watch.