The compounded annual return, its month-by-month texture, and the two months that did the most work in each direction.
This page lists every year of Chainlink (LINK)'s history on Coinfuty as a single compounded annual return, next to its month-by-month texture. LINK's banner year is 2020, not 2021 — an oddity among large caps that the yearly column states plainly. The years since track the broad alt market with a value tilt: long quiet rows, occasional narrative-driven revivals.
Each year compounds its twelve monthly returns from UTC daily closes, with the current year riding as a year-to-date row until it closes. 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 5.3% year-to-date in 2026, compounding 9 completed months plus October to date, through the daily close of 31 October 2026 (UTC). The YTD chip stays provisional until the year closes.
Chainlink returned −39.0% over calendar 2025, from the 2024 close to the 2025 close. Its best month was August at +37.1% and its worst February at −41.1%.
Chainlink's completed calendar years on Coinfuty: 2017 +284.4%, 2018 −51.9%, 2019 +511.3%, 2020 +532.9%, 2021 +74.2%, 2022 −71.4%, 2023 +168.3%, 2024 +33.8%, 2025 −39.0%. 6 of 9 years closed positive, and 2026 is down 5.3% so far.
The median completed year for Chainlink is +74.2%, across 9 full years on record. The median is used instead of the mean because Chainlink's yearly results are extreme in both directions, and one outlier year would distort a simple average.
Chainlink's best completed year on record is 2020 at +532.9% and its worst is 2022 at −71.4%. Both are compounded from monthly returns, so they match what a position held through the entire year would have earned.
2020, when DeFi summer made the oracle trade the market's leader — earlier than most large caps' banner years. The RETURN column and its month strip show how front-loaded that run was.
LINK's history here begins at its first daily perpetual-futures candle on Binance in early 2020, and each row needs a calendar year — so the table is exactly as deep as its perpetual history and grows as years close.
Because returns compound. A +10% month followed by a −10% month leaves −1%, not 0%. The yearly totals multiply the monthly factors together, which is what a held position would have earned.