Chainlink launches 24/5 US equities streams for DeFi, delivering near-real-time pricing for US stocks and ETFs across more than 40 blockchains

Chainlink’s price narrative shifted this week after the protocol upgraded its Data Streams infrastructure to deliver near-real-time pricing for US stocks and ETFs on a 24/5 basis, giving DeFi platforms access to equity data tied to roughly $80 trillion in global market value.

24/5 US Equities Streams launch

Chainlink’s 24/5 US Equities Streams went live on April 12, providing fast and secure market data for US equities and ETFs across all trading sessions, including after-hours and overnight. The service is deployed across more than 40 blockchains using the Chainlink Data Standard.

According to coverage of the upgrade, most existing on-chain data solutions supply only a single price point for equities during standard trading hours (9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET), leaving a gap where on-chain markets cannot reliably mirror market conditions at all hours. Chainlink’s 24/5 streams are designed to close that gap by enabling synthetic equities, automated trading, collateral management, and lending markets to operate with live pricing data rather than stale snapshots.

Integration momentum across DeFi and exchanges

DEXs including Lighter and ApeX, as well as the exchange BitMEX, have signed on to integrate the streams. Lighter CEO Vladimir Novakovski said the integration allows the platform “to extend our fair, low-latency perp execution beyond regular market hours without compromising data integrity.”

Institutional adoption and RWA growth

The upgrade arrives as the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) sector reached $27 billion in 2026. Chainlink is positioned as primary oracle infrastructure for the growing pipeline of institutions tokenizing equities, funds, and bonds on-chain.

Chainlink’s infrastructure is already embedded with institutions including Swift, Euroclear, JPMorgan, Mastercard, UBS, and Fidelity International, according to the article.

LINK price and what traders are watching

LINK was trading around $9.14 to $9.25 on Tuesday, up from recent lows but still down roughly 34% over the past year.

The article also notes that LINK has been in a structural downtrend, with its 200-day simple moving average (SMA) acting as resistance and the 50-day SMA below the 200-day SMA—an arrangement that typically signals bearish control. Analysts cited a clean breakout above $9.50 as near-term resistance, which would require both price momentum and sustained adoption signals tied to the equity data streams launch.