Investors continue to invest in the Bitwise Chainlink ETF despite its challenging performance since launch. Trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker CLNK, this fund has gained around $1.5 million in net inflows over the past week, highlighting steady capital growth that has elevated its assets under management to approximately $24 million to $26 million.
A closer look at the fund reveals that it directly holds about 2.77 million LINK tokens, valued at around $7.20 each as of late June 2026. The fund’s net assets were reported at $19.9 million by June 30, 2026. The variance between the net assets and current AUM estimates stems from an in-kind creation mechanism, which introduces new shares by adding LINK tokens to the fund rather than cash.
The management fee for CLNK is set at 0.34%. Notably, Bitwise waived this fee entirely for the first three months since launch on the first $500 million in assets.
Why do investors keep purchasing shares of this ETF?
CLNK offers the second opportunity for U.S. investors to gain direct exposure to Chainlink’s native token through a regulated and transparent investment vehicle. For those looking for a way to invest in LINK without managing private keys or navigating crypto exchanges, CLNK is one of the few available options. Chainlink’s oracle network plays a critical role in decentralized finance by delivering real-world data to smart contracts across various blockchains, maintaining its position as a core infrastructure component.
The launch of CLNK was part of a broader surge of single-asset crypto ETFs entering the U.S. market in late 2025 and early 2026, as asset managers eagerly submitted filings for funds covering a range of cryptocurrencies from Solana to XRP. They anticipated that regulatory clarity would increase interest in multiple crypto investment options.
Although CLNK currently holds around $25 million in assets, it remains well above the threshold where operating an ETF becomes economically unfeasible. To put it in perspective, the largest Bitcoin ETFs manage assets in the tens of billions, and CLNK’s total AUM would only represent a fraction of a single day of trading activity in these larger products.
Even with a modest weekly inflow of $1.5 million, which may seem limited, it indicates effective organic growth relative to the size of the fund. If this trend persists, the AUM could potentially double in the coming months based solely on inflows, regardless of any price recovery for LINK tokens.