Grayscale has secured approval to proceed with the first spot Chainlink ETF. The move marks the asset manager’s third fund launch within a two-week span and comes as LINK adoption accelerates across the market.
The firm’s Chainlink Trust is now set to convert into a fully tradable exchange-traded fund. ETF analyst Nate Geraci announced on X that regulators have granted the required uplisting approval.
The updated structure will enable the trust to convert and list on NYSE Arca. This shift gives investors regulated exposure to LINK through a traditional and widely understood market vehicle.
Chainlink ETF advances after new filing
The approval follows Grayscale’s registration filing submitted in late September. The firm lodged an S-1 at that time to formally begin the process of transforming the trust into a Chainlink ETF.
This upcoming launch also marks Grayscale’s third ETF rollout in only two weeks. The company recently introduced comparable products tied to XRP and Dogecoin.
GLNK by Grayscale has a staking component, but this feature has been seen to attract regulatory attention. According to analysts, the SEC is yet to answer some questions regarding the functioning of yield-generating mechanisms within digital-asset funds.
Conversely, the CLNK fund of Bitwise does not provide staking and has already entered the registry of DTCC. Initial forecasts indicated that Bitwise would launch the Chainlink ETF first, ahead of Grayscale.
Institutional interest strengthens LINK’s position
Grayscale researchers Zach Pandl and Michael Zhao mentioned Chainlink as an increasingly important part of institutional tokenization in their report entitled The Link Between Worlds. They have found LINK to be the market leader in the Utilities and Services category of the crypto ecosystem.
“LINK is the largest asset by market capitalization in the Utilities & Services Crypto Sector, the ‘picks and shovels’ of on-chain finance. LINK is also the largest asset in crypto that is not a Layer 1 token.”
Chainlink has experienced a boom of interest in the recent past. In August, CaliberCos became one of the first US companies to publicly own and use LINK as part of its corporate treasury, integrating long-term investments with staking-based rewards.
Chainlink was also involved with the Hong Kong digital currency experiments in June. The pilot conducted a test of tokenized value flow between Hong Kong and Australia using the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP).
World Liberty Financial subsequently applied CCIP to facilitate the multi-chain implementation of USD1. The integration aimed to enhance the stable asset’s ability to function across multiple networks.