Chainlink (LINK) Price: CCIP 2.0 Bridge Upgrade and Swift Bank Deal Land as Token Trades Near $15

TLDR

• Chainlink released CCIP 2.0, a bridge upgrade that lets companies add extra security checks to cross-chain transfers.
• The launch comes five months after a $292 million hack drained funds from Kelp DAO’s bridge on rival LayerZero.
• Chainlink will also connect bank systems to Swift’s blockchain ledger through its Runtime Environment, called CRE.
• Banks keep control of their own transaction-signing keys under the new Swift setup, rather than handing them to Chainlink.
• LINK is trading near $15.20, and one analyst points to a possible move above $100 after years of consolidation.

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Chainlink released a major upgrade to its cross-chain bridge on Monday. The software, called CCIP 2.0, lets companies add their own security checks to transfers between blockchains.

$LINK is up 7.8% today, outperforming the broader market following the launch of its CCIP 2.0. pic.twitter.com/o9vnlT8cO9

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) September 29, 2026

Chainlink is best known as an oracle network. It feeds outside data, like asset prices, to blockchains that lending and trading apps rely on.

CCIP extends that work into moving tokens and messages across chains. Since blockchains cannot talk to each other directly, this kind of bridge depends on verifiers to confirm a transaction happened before funds move.

If a verifier gets fooled, an attacker can pull out money that was never deposited. That is what happened in April.

Attackers linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group drained about $292 million in rsETH from Kelp DAO. The bridge ran on Chainlink’s rival LayerZero and relied on a single verifier.

LayerZero said Kelp should have used more than one verifier. Kelp said LayerZero staff reviewed its setup and raised no objections at the time.

CCIP 2.0 now lets companies choose extra verifiers, either running their own or hiring outside providers. These sit on top of Chainlink’s default network of 16 independent node operators.

“Historically, legacy bridges have lost billions due to insecure infrastructure,” said Johann Eid, Chainlink Labs’ chief business officer. Existing integrations will keep working without any changes, the company said.

Chainlink Expands Into Bank Payments

Chainlink also announced a new framework letting banks connect to Swift’s blockchain ledger. The Chainlink Runtime Environment handles workflows between bank systems and the shared ledger.

TODAY: Chainlink announced it is working to enable financial institutions to connect to @swiftcommunity’s blockchain ledger through the Chainlink platform.

Swift moves the equivalent of the world’s GDP roughly every three days ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/ntIHTlOwH3

— Chainlink (@chainlink) September 28, 2026

Banks keep the keys used to authorize their own transactions. Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov said the company was “thrilled to be supporting the Swift ledger.”

Swift’s ledger supports tokenized bank deposits, which stay on each bank’s own balance sheet. Final settlement still runs through existing systems like real-time gross settlement.

Banks Preparing Pilot Programs

Seventeen banks across six continents are preparing pilots, including HSBC, Citi, UBS, and Wells Fargo. Swift said its wider network already connects more than 11,500 institutions across over 200 markets.

Trader Albie, who posts as @linkchainlink, wrote that LINK looks “ready for $100+” after what the analyst called a six-year consolidation period. The post came as Chainlink pushed its bridge and banking news the same week.

Looks like $LINK is ready for $100+

6 year consolidation pic.twitter.com/s09H4XTvFg

— Albie (@linkchainlink) September 26, 2026

LINK was trading at $15.20 at the time of publication.