Chainlink’s LINK Pops 15%, XRP Loses Steam as Bitcoin Revisits $29.6K Range Lows

Cryptocurrencies slid lower Thursday with bitcoin (BTC) revisiting the bottom threshold of its month-long trading range, while Chainlink’s LINK rallied solo among the largest crypto assets.

BTC’s price dipped to as low as $29,593 during the afternoon hours, near its lowest point in a month. The largest cryptocurrency by market value has been see-sawing in a tight channel since June 21, bouncing from the $29,500 level multiple times to trade as high as $31,809.

Ether (ETH) buckled below $1,900 to change hands 1% lower than 24 hours ago.

Ripple’s XRP pared some of its impressive gains from previous days, dropping some 6% in the last 24 hours. The token’s price almost doubled to 93 cents a week ago, following a partial court victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After the decline, it was still trading at around 79 cents.

LINK, the native token of the Chainlink ecosystem, defied the market slump and was the only crypto asset with sizable gains among the 40 largest tokens by market capitalization.

The token surged 15% through the day above $8 for the first time in nearly three months as some large investors – whales in crypto jargon – acquired $6 million of tokens. The price action came after Chainlink released this week an interoperability protocol that facilitates communication between blockchains and banks, tested by interbank communication system Swift.

The CoinDesk Market Index, which tracks the performance of a basket of digital assets, gained early in the day then retreated and was down 1.26% over the last 24 hours.

Crypto investors might have been concerned by a sell-off in tech stocks. The NASDAQ 100 index (NDQ) declined 2% during the day, as investors dumped shares of tech giants Tesla (TSLA) and Netflix (NFLX) after their underwhelming quarterly earnings reports, dropping some 9%.

Cryptocurrency prices have a history of correlating with risk assets such as the tech-heavy NDQ, although the relationship has wobbled this year.

“Seems like we are just having a risk-off day in general after a massive run for weeks, with investors taking profits and rebalancing,” Brett Sifling, director at investment firm Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, told CoinDesk in a call.