Chainlink Whale ‘Oldwhite’ Used More Than 150 Wallets to Avoid Staking Limits

Chainlink’s new “staking” program – where participants can earn crypto rewards for helping to secure the network – was intended to be broad-based: The price-feed provider imposed a limit of 7,000 LINK tokens per wallet to “promote greater inclusion and reduce the risk of a few participants dominating the pool in the early stages,” according to the project team.

But blockchain data reveals how one large holder – a “whale,” in crypto parlance – was able to get around the limits by creating more than 150 addresses – and then staking the full 7,000 LINK allotment from each of them.

The elaborate effort allowed the whale, nicknamed “Oldwhite” by the OpenSea platform, to stake some 1.06 million LINK ($7 million worth).

Chainlink officials have claimed success in drawing broad participation in their new program, arguing that more than 3,300 “unique Community stakers staked a median amount of about 2,100 LINK.” Overall, about 7,800 addresses staked some amount of LINK tokens.

But the individual whale’s ability to shepherd resources and blockchain savvy to garner nearly 5% of the staking program’s overall community allotment of 22.5 million LINK tokens shows just how difficult or impossible it can be to police participants intent on gaming the system.

“There is no perfect solution to 100% prevent whales from staking without trade-offs,” Chainlink Community Ambassador ChainLinkGod.eth acknowledged in a Dec. 8 tweet.

How Oldwhite pulled it off

On the Ethereum blockchain explorer Etherscan, the whale is labeled as 0xC54.

In the days before Chainlink opened an early-access period for qualified participants, the whale started getting their LINK tokens into position.

From Dec. 3 through Dec. 7, the 1.06 million LINK tokens were withdrawn from decentralized lender Aave in three transactions (Tx1, Tx2 and Tx3) and transferred to the Oldwhite wallet.

Then, Oldwhite sent 7,000 LINK each to more than 150 unique wallet addresses.

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