Chainlink's Bottomline Deal Could Unlock $16 Trillion in Payments

Chainlink's LINK has seen a significant surge in value following an announcement of a joint venture between Chainlink and Bottomline, a provider of payments technology. The partnership will enable Bottomline's bank clients to connect their payments infrastructure with public and private blockchains using Chainlink.

Bottomline claims that around 15% of international cross-border transactions on Swift are processed through its platform, which handles over $16 trillion in payments on an annual basis. This could mean that Chainlink can come close to reaching 600 bank clients.

The significance of this deal is huge, as it shows the growing importance of blockchain connectivity in established processes compared to making faster transactions only. According to Colin Swain, Global Head of Product for Corporate Solutions at Bottomline, adoption depends on whether finance teams can manage tokenized money with the same visibility, controls, and governance they expect from existing payment methods.

Chainlink's token economics are of greater relevance to the institutional adoption theory, as the revenues generated from enterprise use of Chainlink and on-chain services are essentially converted into LINK. However, it remains to be seen how this will affect demand for LINK, as neither firm has revealed the monetary institutions involved or when this will actually take place.