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Major blockchain infrastructure provider Chainlink is launching 24/5 support for key real-world assets, including U.S. equities, through an extension of its existing Chainlink Data Streams technology.
According to an announcement on Tuesday, Chainlink 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams are designed to deliver “fast and secure market data for U.S. equities and ETFs across all trading sessions,” five days a week, including after-hours and overnight sessions.
In other words, Chainlink will now enable decentralized protocols to more easily integrate onchain stocks and ETFs into their offerings, helping to push U.S. equities trading closer to the always-on standard unlocked by blockchains.
Competitive landscape
Both centralized and decentralized exchanges in recent months have been competing to roll out either 24/5 or even 24/7 stock and commodities trading capabilities. Perhaps most notably, on Monday, the New York Stock Exchange said it was building a new platform for tokenized securities trading, which could one day run round-the-clock, including weekends.
Additionally, Kraken began offering 24/5 access to a range of CME-based markets, like gold and oil and equities indexes, last year, while BitMEX recently jumped into the fray with a 24/7 Equity Perps offering, covering assets like Amazon, Apple, Circle, Coinbase, Meta, Nvidia, Robinhood, Tesla, and the S&P 500.
Coinbase Derivatives also launched 24/7 trading for its list of altcoin “perpetual-style” futures, following its acquisition of Deribit.
Chainlink said that several crypto-native platforms, including Lighter, which began listing 24/5 equity perps markets earlier this month, and BitMEX, will integrate its new RWA solution. ApeX, another prominent derivatives DEX, will also tap Chainlink 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams, as will HelloTrade, Decibel, Monaco, Opinion Labs, and Orderly Network.
“We’re excited to expand our partnership with Chainlink as Lighter’s official oracle solution for RWA markets by integrating 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams,” Lighter CEO Vladimir Novakovski said. “This enables us to extend our fair, low-latency perp execution beyond regular market hours without compromising data integrity.”
New use cases
In some sense, Chainlink’s oracle technology is relatively straightforward — a means of bringing offchain data, like bid and ask prices, trading volume, and other status flags, to onchain smart contracts. But the integrated solution also unlocks a range of new capabilities.
The team notes Chainlink 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams can support “new yield and exposure strategies” using structured products and vaults, power new prediction and lending markets, and enable new synthetic equities and funds, among other onchain products. The equities streams will go live on over 40 blockchains using the Chainlink Data Standard.
“Most onchain data solutions only provide a single price point for equities during standard trading hours (weekdays 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), creating a gap where onchain markets are unable to reliably replicate market conditions all 24 hours of the day,” Chainlink noted. “These limitations create pricing blind spots, increase risk during off-hours, and make it difficult to build secure, scalable equity-based financial products onchain.”
Chainlink notes that 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams are “just the beginning,” inviting developer “to learn more about how to access 24/7 coverage.”
