Chainlink's on-chain active addresses hit an 8-month high, with institutional-level DeFi infrastructure migration likely being the main reason

On May 9 and 10, the Chainlink network recorded 282,170 and 264,090 unique active LINK addresses, respectively, the highest levels since September 2025. The surge in on-chain activity comes against the backdrop of several institutional-grade DeFi projects announcing their migration of cross-chain infrastructure to Chainlink CCIP. On May 7, Solv Protocol announced the completion of a security review following the April Kelp DAO vulnerability incident and decided to migrate over $700 million in tokenized Bitcoin assets (SolvBTC and xSolvBTC) from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP.

Previously, Kelp DAO had also announced the migration of its rsETH infrastructure to Chainlink CCIP. These initiatives represent a significant shift of institutional-grade DeFi infrastructure from LayerZero to the Chainlink cross-chain ecosystem. Additionally, earlier this month, data showed that whale wallets holding between 100,000 and 10 million LINK increased their holdings by 32.93 million LINK within 30 days.