While Bitcoin is continuing on one of the most non-volatile periods of its recent liftetime, a number of analysts have said that an "altcoin season" is beginning: there have been many reports of wild price swings in a number of altcoins; most recently, however, is LINK, the native coin of  Blockchain  Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term data oracle Chainlink.

Indeed, the value of link surged roughly 34.8 percent over the course of the 24-hour period between Saturday, July 12th, and Sunday, July 13th--LINK sat around $6.10 on Saturday and rose suddenly as high as $8.22 before leveling off around $7.88. LINK held the #10 spot on CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency by market cap list.

The surge over the weekend was the continuation of a greater rally that began at the beginning of the week: on Monday, July 6th, LINK was sitting around $4.10, where it had stalled for weeks. However, this means that the rise from last Monday to today ($7.97 at press time) is a whopping 94.39 percent increase.

The most recent price rally puts LINK at a new all-time-high; LINK previously reached highs around 4.75 during the month of March before suddenly plunging to $1.81 several days after March 12th, which is widely known as crypto’s “Black Thursday.”

The reasons behind the rally

Why, exactly, did this astronomical rise occur?

There seems to be a fairly good chance that the rally was the result of a “fear of missing out” (FOMO) trend among investors: once the price initially spiked between Monday and Tuesday of last week, investors may have clambered onto LINK as a way of making further gains: this, in turn, caused the price to continue to increase.

Beyond FOMO, however, CoinTelegraph noted that Chainlink has secured a number of high-profile partnerships throughout 2020 with other companies in the cryptocurrency sector. For example, on July 8th, Chainlink became the oracle solution provider for Nexo, a cryptocurrency lender with 800,000 users.

Chainlink has also garnered two more partnerships over the last two months with Hedera Hashgrpah and Matic network, and was mentioned in a blog post by Google in June. The blog post is entitled “Building hybrid blockchain/cloud applications with Ethereum and Google Cloud.”

Additionally, LINK seems to be the latest coin to have benefitted from what a number of traders are describing as an “Alt Season”: as Bitcoin’s levels of  Volatility  Volatility In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Traders can be successful in both low and high volatile environments, but the strategies employed are often different depending upon volatility. Why Too Much Volatility is a ProblemIn the FX space, lower volatile currency pairs offer less surprises, and are suited to position traders.High volatile pairs are attractive for many day traders, due to quick and strong movements, offering the potential for higher profits, although the risk associated with such volatile pairs are many. Overall, a look at previous volatility tells us how likely price will fluctuate in the future, although it has nothing to do with direction.All a trader can gather from this is the understanding that the probability of a volatile pair to increase or decrease an X amount in a Y period of time, is more than the probability of a non-volatile pair. Another important factor is, volatility can and does change over time, and there can be periods when even highly volatile instruments show signs of flatness, with price not really making headway in either direction. Too little volatility is just as problematic for markets as too much, we uncertainty in excess can create panic and problems of liquidity. This was evident during Black Swan events or other crisis that have historically roiled currency and equity markets. In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Traders can be successful in both low and high volatile environments, but the strategies employed are often different depending upon volatility. Why Too Much Volatility is a ProblemIn the FX space, lower volatile currency pairs offer less surprises, and are suited to position traders.High volatile pairs are attractive for many day traders, due to quick and strong movements, offering the potential for higher profits, although the risk associated with such volatile pairs are many. Overall, a look at previous volatility tells us how likely price will fluctuate in the future, although it has nothing to do with direction.All a trader can gather from this is the understanding that the probability of a volatile pair to increase or decrease an X amount in a Y period of time, is more than the probability of a non-volatile pair. Another important factor is, volatility can and does change over time, and there can be periods when even highly volatile instruments show signs of flatness, with price not really making headway in either direction. Too little volatility is just as problematic for markets as too much, we uncertainty in excess can create panic and problems of liquidity. This was evident during Black Swan events or other crisis that have historically roiled currency and equity markets. Read this Term have significantly decreased over the course of the last two months, traders are increasingly turning to altcoins as possible sources of profit: COMP (Compound), ADA (Cardano), and XTZ (Tezos) also seem to have done particularly well.

As such, Bitcoin’s dominance in cryptocurrency market capitalization seems to have loosened its grip, and may continue to slide further down.