Chainlink says $7 billion moved onto CCIP in Q2 as institutional use grows

Chainlink said more than $7 billion of token value migrated onto its cross-chain infrastructure in the second quarter, as crypto projects moved away from older bridges and financial firms pushed further into tokenized markets. In its second-quarter review, the network said its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, or CCIP (system for moving assets across blockchains), handled $4.9 billion in quarterly volume, up 353% from a year earlier, while total value secured reached $110 billion. The shift was driven partly by security concerns around cross-chain bridges. Mantle migrated more than $2.5 billion of MNT to CCIP, Lombard Finance moved over $1 billion in Bitcoin assets, Solv shifted more than $700 million in tokenized Bitcoin, and KelpDAO moved about $1.5 billion of rsETH after a $292 million exploit involving its previous bridging provider. Kraken migrated more than $330 million of wrapped Bitcoin and plans to use CCIP for future wrapped assets, while Re shifted about $475 million of reUSD distribution and Virtuals adopted the system for more than $700 million of VIRTUAL across blockchain networks. Chainlink said the roughly $140 billion DeFi sector (blockchain-based financial services) increasingly depends on infrastructure linking separate networks, even as bridge and infrastructure losses this year have surpassed $650 million across incidents including the Verus Ethereum Bridge and Polkadot-based Hyperbridge. CCIP, which launched on mainnet in July 2023, is emerging as one beneficiary of that reassessment. Institutional adoption also broadened during the quarter. Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. said in May that its Collateral AppChain will use Chainlink’s Runtime Environment and data standard for near-real-time collateral management, with a go-live expected in the fourth quarter. Fidelity International launched its first tokenized fund using Chainlink for onchain net-asset-value data, while State Street Investment Management and Galaxy used the network for SWEEP, a tokenized liquidity fund. Chainlink also highlighted Project Pangea, involving banking groups from Europe and South Korea representing more than 50 banks and over $10 trillion in assets under management, to explore T+0 foreign-exchange settlement using regulated stablecoins, ISO 20022 messaging and SWIFT infrastructure. The report said broader network use is beginning to feed into LINK demand. Chainlink Reserve added more than 1.44 million LINK in the second quarter, taking holdings above 4.5 million tokens, and the reserve uses revenue from enterprise adoption and onchain services to acquire LINK. Its Smart Value Recapture system has recaptured more than $23 million from DeFi liquidations, with roughly $15 million going to participating protocols and about $8 million flowing to the Chainlink network, after processing more than $880 million in liquidations. Off-chain data also pointed to rising accumulation. Santiment showed LINK held on known exchanges fell by more than 15.7 million tokens over the past month, about a 12% decline, with another 1.04 million LINK leaving exchanges on July 19. CryptoSlate data showed LINK rose about 12% this month to $8.34, though it remained roughly 31% lower since the start of the year.