Chainlink – Smart Contracts of the Future
Ethereum changed the nature of cryptocurrency away from being merely an alternative financial asset. The “smart contract” functionality of the blockchain saw ETH gain popularity, rising it up to the second spot in the cryptosphere, in terms of volume and market cap.
As with Bitcoin, many other companies decided to innovate on the Ethereum blockchain. The smart contract functionality promises unlimited innovations that have plenty of practical functionality in every industry.
What is Chainlink?
Chainlink is another example of a blockchain cryptocurrency looking to develop on the ideas of the Ethereum platform. Chainlink attempts to bridge the divide between the utility of smart contracts on the blockchain, and real-world applications for the tech in business, manufacturing, and retail.
By making use of “Oracles,” Chainlink can search, find, and verify data in real-time, and integrate it on the blockchain into smart contracts. Let’s unpack everything you need to know about the Chainlink Blockchain.
The Team Behind Chainlink
SmartContract is the company at the heart of the Chainlink project. The company founded the initiative in September of 2014, with CTO Steve Ellis and CEO Sergey Nazarov being the key players in the project’s development strategy.
Sergey Nazarov is a well-known serial entrepreneur in the crypto space, and one of the originators in the crypto environment pre-2011. Before founding SmartContract, he started the Secure Asset Exchange, as well as the CryptoMail.
Steve Ellis, the CTO, worked as a software engineer at Pivotal Labs, and he spent a large portion of his career working with Sergey on various projects, including the Secure Asset Exchange.
Chainlink understands the importance of having a solid team behind the company. The company’s advisory includes the professor of Computer Science at Cornell Tech, Ari Juels, as well as the co-director of IC3, Andrew Miller, who’s an advisor to Tezos and ZCash. Let’s not forget other legends in the space like Brian Lio, the CEO of Smith+Crown, as well as plenty of other heavy-hitters in the crypto space.
The Chainlink ICO launched in September 2017, netting $32-million in seed funding for the platform. The ICO included the distribution of 350-million LINK tokens, forming 35% of the total 1-billion LINK token supply. The distribution of LINK token is the ICO went with 350-million tokens (35%) sold in a crowd sale.
350-million tokens went to developers, and 30-million LINK tokens went into the company for reserve cash holdings.
Chainlink also has several impressive partners in the commercial and business space. SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is the most notable partner in the blockchain venture. The organization looks to aid with infrastructure to form the backbone of the international payments network.
Zepelin_os is an example of another high-value partner involved in the development of smart contracts. Another partner, which is an operating system for developing smart contracts. Chainlink also has partnership agreements with exchanges like Request Network and Signal Capital in London.
Chainlink bridges the gap between on-chain smart contract solutions and off-chain business data. The blockchain consists of two primary architectural factors.
- On-chain infrastructure
- Off-chain infrastructure
On-chain infrastructure is all those on-chain contracts featuring deployment on the Ethereum blockchain. These contracts are Oracle’s processing data requests from users that want to access their data off-chain.
Those users who wish to pull data from off the blockchain must submit requesting contracts to the Chainlink network, processing these requests into further agreements. These contracts then match user’s contracts to the existing oracle appropriate to the pending application.
The types of contracts include the following.
Reputations contracts checking the track of oracle providers to verify authenticity.
Order-matching contracts that log user contract agreements on the blockchain, receiving bids from verified oracles.
Aggregating contracts that accumulate data from chosen oracles, automatically balancing them for accurate results.
The on-chain functions from the Chainlink blockchain follow 3-step processes using the following.
Oracle Selection – User contracts contain Service Level Agreements (SLA). These contracts specify requirements and parameters for user data searches. This information may include the oracle reputation, as well as the specifics of any data required. Users can also apply filters when searching for oracles manually.
Data Reporting – Selected off-chain oracles must carry out the SLA, as mentioned in the user contract. They must also transmit all data to the blockchain for processing by on-chain nodes.
Result Aggregation – The aggregating contract collects data submitted by oracles. It then balances the data, providing users with an accurate analysis that prevents tampering, ensuring data integrity.
How Do I Buy Chainlink? What are the Recommended Exchanges?
The LINK native ERC20 token is available for purchase on most premium crypto exchanges, including the top players like Binance, Huobi Gate.io, and OKEx. You’ll likely be dealing with unregulated exchanges that will not pay you out in fiat like US Dollars.
