Each quarter compounds its three months — the coarsest grain that still shows a cycle turning inside a single year.
This page compresses Chainlink (LINK)'s history into four cells per year — Q1 through Q4 — coarse enough to watch a cycle turn inside a single year. LINK's cycle offset is clearest by quarter: its strongest cells sit earlier in the cycle than the majors', and its 2021 peak-to-trough turn began sooner too. Comparing its columns against Bitcoin's quarterly page shows where the timing diverged.
Each quarter compounds its three calendar months from UTC daily closes, so a cell is what a position held through those months would actually have returned. LINK's data starts at its perpetual listing in early 2020. As the original DeFi bellwether it front-ran the 2021 cycle — several of its best stretches arrived earlier than the majors'.
Chainlink is down 19.9% quarter-to-date in Q4 2026, compounding October through the daily close of 31 October 2026 (UTC). The figure keeps moving until the quarter closes.
Chainlink returned +99.6% in Q3 2026, its most recent completed quarter, compounding that quarter's three monthly returns. The median Q3 return on record is +38.9%, so it came in above the norm.
Chainlink's 2026 quarters so far: Q1 −28.1%, Q2 −18.0%, Q3 +99.6%, Q4 −19.9% (in progress). Compounded together they put Chainlink down 5.7% year-to-date.
2025: Q1 −32.5%, Q2 −1.0%, Q3 +59.4%, Q4 −42.7%. The strongest quarter was Q3 at +59.4% and the weakest Q4 at −42.7%; the full year compounded to −39.0%.
Across 9 completed Q4s on record, the median Q4 return for Chainlink is +0.3%. The best Q4 was 2023 at +82.7%, the worst 2025 at −42.7%, and 5 of 9 closed positive. The current Q4 is excluded until it closes.
By median return across all completed years, Q3 has been Chainlink's strongest quarter at +38.9% and Q2 its weakest at −18.0%. Q1 +27.7%, Q2 −18.0%, Q3 +38.9%, Q4 +0.3% are the four medians; they shift as each new year is added.
Across 37 completed quarters, Chainlink's best was Q2 2019 at +579.0% and its worst Q2 2022 at −62.9%. 20 of 37 quarters closed positive.
LINK front-ran the cycle — the 2020 oracle narrative peaked before the market's 2021 highs, so its banner quarters arrive a column or two earlier than BTC's or ETH's. The offset is its grid's signature.
LINK's history here begins at its first daily perpetual-futures candle on Binance in early 2020, so the grid starts with the first quarter completed after that date. All medians are computed from that point on.
Because returns compound. A +10% month followed by a −10% month leaves −1%, not 0%. The quarterly figure multiplies the monthly factors together, which is the return a held position would actually see.