Grayscale said Chainlink will be at the center of the next major phase of blockchain adoption, calling the project an “important connective tissue” linking cryptocurrencies and traditional finance.
In a recent research report, the asset manager argued that Chainlink’s (LINK) growing suite of software tools is emerging as essential infrastructure for tokenization, cross-chain payments, and the broader transition to real-world assets on blockchain rails.
“A more accurate description of Chainlink today would be modular middleware that enables on-chain applications to securely consume off-chain data, interact across blockchains, and meet enterprise-level compliance requirements,” Grayscale wrote.
The company added that this expanded presence has helped turn LINK into the largest non-layer 1 cryptocurrency asset (excluding stablecoins) by market capitalization, giving investors exposure to multiple ecosystems rather than a single chain.
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Chainlink will orchestrate the tokenization boom
According to Grayscale, tokenization is the clearest path for Chainlink’s value to become apparent. Today, almost all financial assets, from securities to real estate, are still recorded in off-chain ledgers. For these assets to gain the efficiency and programmability of blockchain, they must be tokenized, verified, and connected to external data sources.
“We expect Chainlink to play a central role in coordinating the tokenization process and have announced a number of partnerships, including those with S&P Global and FTSE/Russell,” the asset manager wrote.
According to RWA.xyz, the market for tokenized assets has grown from $5 billion to over $35.6 billion since the beginning of 2023.
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Chainlink, JPMorgan, Ondo complete first cross-chain DvP payment
Last June, Chainlink, JPMorgan’s Kinexys network, and Ondo Finance completed a cross-chain delivery-to-pay (DvP) settlement between a permissioned bank payment system and a public blockchain testnet.
The pilot connected Kinexys Digital Payments, JPMorgan’s permissioned payments network, with a testnet from Ondo Chain, which specializes in tokenized real-world assets. Using Chainlink’s Runtime Environment (CRE) as the coordination layer, the consensus exchanged Ondo’s tokenized U.S. Treasury fund OUSG for fiat payments without the assets ever leaving the underlying chain.
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