Chainlink Launches 24/5 Equity Price Feeds as Tokenized Stocks Grow

This article was first published on The Bit Journal.

Chainlink has rolled out a new set of market feeds designed to make U.S. equities usable inside crypto apps without the usual time-window headaches. The product, called 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams, delivers pricing data for major U.S. stocks and ETFs across regular hours, pre-market, after-hours, and overnight sessions, so on-chain markets can keep functioning when traditional sessions shift.

The practical impact is simple: decentralized trading platforms, lending protocols, and derivatives venues can reference real equity pricing more consistently, instead of relying on stale snapshots that only reflect the standard 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET session. Chainlink frames the opportunity as enormous, pointing to the ~$80T U.S. stock market as one of the largest asset pools still underrepresented on-chain.

The missing piece was never hype, it was timing

Crypto markets run nonstop, but equities do not as that gap has created awkward moments for builders trying to offer equity-linked products. A trader can open a position at night, but if the reference price stops updating, the risk engine starts guessing, and that is where bad liquidations and unfair pricing often begin.

Chainlink says most existing on-chain equity feeds behaved like a “single price point” during regular hours, which left protocols exposed to blind spots the moment liquidity moved to extended sessions. The new streams are built specifically to close that hole by transforming fragmented equity data into continuous, cryptographically signed updates that remain useful throughout the trading week.

Why tokenized stocks need 24/5 equity streams

The difference is not only “more hours.” It is the quality of the information traveling with the price. According to Chainlink’s documentation, the 24/5 streams include best bid and ask prices, bid and ask volumes, last traded price, market-status flags, and staleness tracking. That extra context matters because it helps applications decide when to pause trading, widen risk buffers, or adjust margin rules when liquidity thins out.

There is also an important nuance: U.S. equities do not have a single consolidated order book. Chainlink notes that the bid and ask volumes come from one specific order book at a time, meaning the figures are informational rather than a perfect proxy for total liquidity. That kind of detail is easy to ignore in marketing, but it is exactly the sort of reality check builders need when launching tokenized stock markets that aim to behave professionally.

Exchanges are already wiring it into equity perps

The company says multiple venues are integrating the streams to power always-available markets tied to U.S. equities, including Lighter and BitMEX, alongside several other platforms.

BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz described the feeds as infrastructure for professional-grade equity derivatives, saying, “For derivatives markets, security and data integrity matter more than anything. Chainlink’s 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams are a critical component of our professional-grade 24/7 equity derivatives infrastructure.”

This adoption angle matters because it signals where the demand is coming from. It is not only DeFi hobbyists chasing new toys. It is derivatives venues that live and die by clean pricing, liquidations that make sense, and risk systems that do not collapse in thin markets. That is the proving ground for tokenized stocks as a serious product category.

TradFi is moving in the same direction

This launch also lands at a moment when traditional market operators are exploring similar ideas from the opposite side of the bridge. Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE’s parent, has announced work on a blockchain-based platform aimed at enabling 24/7 trading and on-chain settlement for tokenized securities, pending regulatory approval.

In that context, Chainlink’s push looks less like a one-off crypto feature and more like a missing layer in a larger redesign of market plumbing. A Duke University finance professor, Campbell Harvey, captured the sentiment bluntly, telling reporters: “Tokenized stocks are probably the lowest hanging fruit.”

Key indicators traders will watch from here

For the broader crypto market, the first indicator is adoption velocity: how quickly real venues build volume around equity-linked products using these feeds. If liquidity deepens, tokenized stocks become less of a niche narrative and more of a daily-use instrument.

The second indicator is execution quality, especially during session transitions. Chainlink’s own guidance warns that price jumps of 1% to 2% are normal, while larger spikes can happen in low-liquidity conditions, which is exactly when liquidations and bad fills can get messy.

The third indicator is LINK positioning. On the day of the rollout, LINK was trading around $12.40, with market participants watching whether new institutional-style use cases translate into sustained demand rather than short-lived headlines.

Conclusion

Chainlink’s 24/5 equity streams are not trying to reinvent Wall Street overnight. They are doing something more practical: fixing the data gaps that kept equity markets from behaving reliably on-chain. If exchanges and protocols can build safer liquidations, cleaner pricing, and better risk controls around always-updating equity feeds, tokenized stocks stop feeling like a demo and start looking like infrastructure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Chainlink launch?
A 24/5 data-stream product that brings U.S. stock and ETF pricing updates on-chain across extended sessions.

Why does 24/5 matter for on-chain apps?
It reduces stale pricing risk outside standard trading hours, improving execution and risk management.

Which markets can use these feeds?
Equity perpetuals, synthetic equity products, lending collateral valuation, and prediction-style markets.

Does this mean U.S. stocks now trade 24/7?
No. The feeds cover 24/5 trading sessions, while weekends still require separate handling strategies.

Glossary of Key Terms

Data Streams: Real-time market data delivery designed for low-latency applications like perps and liquidation engines.

Market-status flags: Signals that identify whether the market is in pre-market, regular, post-market, overnight, or closed states.

Staleness tracking: A way to detect when pricing updates stop, helping protocols trigger safeguards.

Equity perps: Perpetual futures contracts that track an underlying asset’s price without an expiry date.

References

Reuters

CoinMarketCap

Chainlink Blog

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