Chainlink is a decentralized network that puts data and information from the real-world on the blockchain through smart contracts via oracles. Smart contracts are one of the most important concepts within blockchain technology, using self-executing contracts with terms & conditions inside them. Chainlink is powered by their token LINK, used to pay for services on the network.
In order to understand Chainlink, I’d recommend reading our page on smart contracts first. This allows you to learn more about the technology behind Chainlink, and how this helps to put real-world data on the blockchain.
This resolves a big ‘issue’ where off-chain and on-chain data aren’t using the same format, and have therefore not been able to be easily linked with each other.
Chainlink is powered by so-called oracles, which is basically a software intermediary that helps to format off-chain and on-chain data so that it can be connected with each other back and forward.
The term ‘intermediary’ is often seen as a bad thing in the blockchain space, as what we’re essentially all try to create is something that’s decentralized, rather than a network controlled by intermediaries.
Chainlink is aware of this and therefore chose the route of using nodes, ran by community members and token holders, to decentralize and secure the network through individual oracles and APIs. This removes the single-point-of-failure and therefore is much more secure than if Chainlink were to use just a single oracle.
This review of Chainlink (LINK) was created for informational purposes. This article is not intended for promotion.
Chainlink comes into play as soon as a smart contract requires real-world data. The smart contract would put out a request to Chainlink for information.
The protocol picks up this request and triggers an event to collect the real-world data needed, and then puts this data in a newly created smart contract on the blockchain. This contract is called a Chainlink Service Level Agreement Contract (SLA).
Chainlink is powered by three smart contracts:
All three contracts are used to serve a data request. Through the use of Chainlink core (reads SLAs and routes them to the Chainlink adapter, which connects real-world data and nodes. The adapter reads the data, processes it and writes it to the blockchain), and the Chainlink adapter, the protocol has everything it needs to take any real-world data to the blockchain.
Now, there’s all sorts of blockchain networks from Ethereum to Polkadot to Polygon, Solana, and many other ones.
Chainlink has stated they aim to support any network in the future and is currently already operating on many networks, providing data to many smart contract applications. Such as, Aave, Synthetix, Ampleforth, Kyber Network, Yearn Finance, and many other ones.
It’s not just used by smart contract applications though. There’s also Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF) used by many blockchain games and NFT projects. As well as developers use the protocol for e.g. sports and weather data.
The protocol is built by a huge team of developers, academics, and business experts from all over the world. Chainlink was (co-)founded by Sergey Nazarov in 2017. Sergey also founded smartcontract.com.
There have been long rumours about Sergey being satoshi nakamoto or at least an early bitcoin developer, as the smartcontract.com domain was purchased just six days before the Bitcoin white paper was released. Though, the domain was transferred in 2014, meaning he could’ve gotten access to it in 2014 rather than 2006. If you’re interested in learning more about that, then definitely check out this post.
Earlier last month, Chainlink released the ‘Chainlink 2.0’ white paper, introducing hybrid smart contracts. This white paper outlines how the decentralized protocol can create a decentralized metalayer to further improve the use of smart contracts for off-chain computation. Blockchains cannot offer this feature, but decentralized oracles can.
Instead of repeating everything on their whitepaper page, we encourage you to check it out to learn more about their current priorities and developments. It’s mapped out perfectly!
Even though Chainlink operates on various chains, their LINK token is an ERC-20 token with the additional ERC677 functionality to allow token transfers to contain a data payload.
As you can imagine, Chainlink relies on many different parties processing and validating information. In order to keep this as decentralized as possible, it’s encouraged to run a node and help run the network. This is done by incentivising node operators for the data provided from external resources, for processing this data and submitting it on the blockchain, and for their overall performance.
In order to run a node, operators are required to have skin in the game and stake LINK on the network, which could be seen as a security deposit in case the operator has malicious intends.
LINK is also used to pay for this data and the Chainlink services, making it the utility token powering the whole ecosystem. The costs will depend on the current demand and supply for data processing by the available nodes.
Chainlink is a huge project that bridges a major gap. There’s obviously a lot of demand for their services and the number of partners, connected dAPPS and supported blockchain networks continues to grow.
That said, I believe it’s a must-have token for anyone that’s interested in holding large cap altcoins and is satisfied holding tokens long-term. With the continued growth of DeFi and dAPPS Chainlink is going to see continued growth.
LINK is a relatively safe long-term pick that’s suitable for most people’s portfolio. If you’re interested in learning more about their services, then definitely check out their website.
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