Crypto investors continue to hold out hope that popular meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB -5.04%) will somehow turn things around and skyrocket higher. But Shiba Inu is now down 90% from its all-time high and shows no signs of surging in value anytime soon. Even worse, Shiba Inu is no longer even the most popular meme coin.
So maybe it's time to forget about Shiba Inu and find another crypto capable of skyrocketing higher. One cryptocurrency on my radar right now is Chainlink (LINK -4.69%), which had a spectacular run during the last crypto bull market rally. It now seems poised for another incredible run, thanks to its important role in several major transformative trends.
Decentralized finance
Unlike Shiba Inu, which offers little to no utility, Chainlink supports plenty of real-world usage as a decentralized blockchain oracle network. That's a mouthful, but it just means that Chainlink acts as a bridge between the real world and the blockchain world. As a data oracle, Chainlink delivers data to blockchain-based smart contracts, which are the building blocks of decentralized finance.
This link to the world of decentralized finance is why Chainlink's value skyrocketed in 2020 and 2021. Back then, investors were convinced that decentralized finance (i.e., a world without financial intermediaries and powered by blockchain technology) was the future of finance. Since Chainlink was helping to power this transformation, it's no wonder the token's price soared into the stratosphere. Between March 2020 and May 2021, the price of Chainlink exploded from $2 to $50. That's a 25x return on investment in just over a year.
Artificial intelligence
Moreover, the current artificial intelligence (AI) trend has the potential to send Chainlink higher. With the rise of ChatGPT in 2023, Chainlink started to explore potential use cases at the intersection of AI and blockchain. In May, Chainlink published a number of potential use cases of how it might be able to leverage the new AI trend, including those involving supply chain logistics, financial services, and healthcare. All of these are potential multibillion-dollar opportunities.
Image source: Getty Images.
Granted, a lot needs to be done before investors are likely to see a huge impact on the price of Chainlink from its AI links. It's one thing to come up with creative ideas and potential use cases, and another thing entirely to execute a strategy around those ideas. But Chainlink has a lot of very smart people thinking about a possible integration of AI right now, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is a strategic advisor for the token.
If you're a patient, long-term investor, this is an area where Chainlink could see tremendous upside potential.
Asset tokenization
And, finally, there's the trend of real-world asset tokenization. This refers to the transformation of traditional assets (such as stocks and bonds) into digital assets that can be traded on the blockchain. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) projects this could be a $16 trillion market opportunity by 2030, and for good reason. A growing number of Wall Street titans, including BlackRock, now view asset tokenization as the future of finance.
And, as with the trend of artificial intelligence, Chainlink is looking for ways to insert itself into the conversation. The tokenization of assets requires financial data from trusted real-world sources, and that's exactly what Chainlink can provide. If the asset tokenization trend really does take off, it has the potential to send Chainlink much higher.
How much higher can Chainlink go?
Taking a big-picture view, Chainlink is all about data and the future of finance. As long as it can continue to become part of new finance trends -- such as decentralized finance and asset tokenization -- it should be able to surge higher in coming years. And, if Chainlink can find ways to leverage the potential upside from emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the combined returns could be truly incredible.
Just keep in mind, though, we're likely still in the early stages here, so any growth will come over the long haul. Unlike with Shiba Inu, where the focus is entirely on the short term, the focus with Chainlink should be on the long term.
The big question, of course, is just how much higher Chainlink can go. The all-time high for Chainlink is $53, so that would imply a nearly 3x return from today's current price of $18. But if Wall Street starts to get behind this crypto as a key player in the future of finance, then watch out, because Chainlink could really go on an incredible run.
