Crypto whales hedge ahead of FOMC, buy LINK and ONDO

Large cryptocurrency holders boosted Chainlink and Ondo spot balances while trimming Uniswap positions and opening short exposure in perpetual futures ahead of today’s Federal Open Market Committee decision and the new Fed chair’s opening remarks.

On-chain trackers show Chainlink spot balances held by large wallets rose from about 664.2 million LINK on June 12 to roughly 668.18 million by mid‑June, an addition of nearly 4 million tokens, roughly $33 million at recent prices. The number of wallets holding at least one LINK reached about 535,650, the highest since 2022. The token has seen recent enterprise adoption, including use as an oracle by a sports prediction platform and integration work with the DTCC for collateral workflows. Derivatives data over the past two days indicate several trader cohorts moved net short on LINK, with some smart‑money short positions showing unrealized profits while the largest whale long is about $1.3 million underwater.

Uniswap shows the opposite on the spot side. Whale spot balances fell from about 780.50 million UNI on June 15 to roughly 778.53 million shortly afterward, a decline near 2 million tokens as the price rose. UNI moved sharply higher over a single day, gaining about 23%. Perpetual‑futures positioning over the past week shows whales and smart‑money desks moved decisively net short; smart‑money exposure is roughly 95% short. One large short position opened near $8 and has about $688,000 in unrealized gains. A long position entered at $6.37, backed by roughly $1.4 million, is currently below breakeven.

Ondo Finance recorded clear spot accumulation. Whale‑held ONDO increased from about 7.82 billion tokens on June 13 to approximately 7.9 billion a few days later, an addition near 80 million tokens. Ondo reports total value locked near $3.7 billion and recently hired an ETF industry veteran to support on‑chain portfolio work. Perpetuals data on several platforms show whales, smart money and notable accounts net short by about $2.56 million combined, with many short positions clustered between $0.38 and $0.54. ONDO is up about 7% on the week.

Perpetual futures are leveraged contracts that allow traders to maintain directional exposure or hedge spot positions. The recent on‑chain and derivatives positioning shows large accounts combining spot buys or sells with short perpetual positions ahead of the FOMC meeting.

Federal Reserve officials are not expected to announce a rate cut at the meeting. The FOMC statement and any remarks from the new chair are due today.