Chainlink prices have exploded by over 36% to an almost two-year high, topping $26 during late trading on Dec. 2.

LINK has more than doubled in price over the past month, climbing from below $11 in early November to today’s peak, which is the highest it has been since January 2022. Most of those gains have come in the past few hours.

The asset had cooled a little to trade at just over $24 during the Tuesday morning Asian session, according to Coingecko.

Chainlink Partners With 21X

The pair announced a partnership between Chainlink and 21X, a Frankfurt-based fintech, to develop Europe’s first EU-regulated financial market infrastructure for tokenized securities on Dec. 2.

Scheduled to launch in Q1 2025, the platform will operate under Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) supervision and leverage Chainlink’s technology for several key functions.

These include providing secure and accurate price data feeds for listed products, enabling cross-chain interoperability through Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), and facilitating access to assets and stablecoins across multiple blockchain protocols.

Were excited to announce Europe’s first tokenized securities trading settlement system—21X (@tradeon21x)—is adopting the #Chainlink standard.

Price Feeds will underpin 21X’s trading engine CCIP will connect it to assets across the onchain economy: https://t.co/ACGrBKuduL pic.twitter.com/BYKSBGUFp8

Max Heinzle, founder and CEO of 21X, praised the partnership adding that they were putting in place “all the elements required to launch Europe’s first tokenized securities market infrastructure under the EU’s DLT Regime.”

The partnership aims to support the institutional adoption of tokenized securities, allowing smart contract-based issuance, trading, and settlement of stocks, bonds, and funds.

Angie Walker, Global Head of Banking and Capital Markets at Chainlink Labs, stated:

“By leveraging the Chainlink standard, 21X will ensure its matching and settlement system is underpinned by highly accurate and reliable market data, while CCIP will enable users to access a wide variety of assets from across the digital asset economy.”

Deeper Ties With TradFi

On Dec. 3, Chainlink retweeted a November blog post on its progress with traditional financial institutions and banks, which may have added to the momentum.

Some of those partnerships include major TradFi players such as Swift, JPMorgan, Citi Group, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Lloyds, ANZ Bank, and BNY Mellon.

⬡ Swift

⬡ Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC)

⬡ Euroclear

⬡ Clearstream

⬡ Central Bank of Brazil

⬡ JP Morgan

⬡ State Street

⬡ UBS

⬡ BNY Mellon

⬡ Citi

⬡ BNP Paribas

⬡ Edward Jones

⬡ Franklin Templeton

⬡ Wellington Management

⬡ Invesco

⬡ Fidelity… pic.twitter.com/IXVzfCt3Vz

Meanwhile, ecosystem ambassador Zach Rynes said that LINK was more of a ‘bank coin’ than XRP.

“Ripple likes to take well-established concepts, repackage them, and present them as a whole new thing,” he said before highlighting Chainlink’s TradFi ties in a separate post on X.