Earlier this month, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov announced that Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), a global communication standard for token movement and messaging between blockchains, is slated to be released in 2022.
This week, digital asset management platform Celsius announced its intent to integrate CCIP as a “core infrastructure element” of Celsius’ multi-chain CeDeFi framework, which will also use Chainlink Proof of Reserve to transparently mint wrapped assets.
Yesterday, CCIP came closer to fruition with the announcement that Diem co-creator and chief economist, Christian Catalini, and renowned Stanford cryptographer, Dan Boneh, have joined Chainlink Labs as strategic advisors overseeing the development of CCIP and supporting research that expands the crypto-economics model outlined in the Chainlink 2.0 whitepaper.
In an official statement, Nazarov championed Catalini and Boneh as “some of the greatest minds” in the fields of crypto-economics and cryptography.
“Dan and Christian are two of the most accomplished academics in this entire industry and we are honored to have their guidance as we build this foundational architecture for a multi-blockchain world,” Nazarov said.
Also the founder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab, Catalini is renowned for his pioneering work on the economics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, early stage capital formation, and the economics of scientific collaboration. In an official statement, he highlighted the fundamental role CCIP will play in creating a multi-chain world that amplifies DeFi’s mainstream adoption.
“The Chainlink oracle network can serve as a neutral and open layer that connects the world’s blockchains and I look forward to contributing to this vital piece of interoperability infrastructure,” Catalini said.
Boneh, the head of Stanford’s Applied Cryptography Group and co-director of Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research, is esteemed for his research on cryptosystems with novel properties, cryptanalysis, web security, and cryptography for blockchains. He highlighted security’s “absolutely paramount” importance when it comes to inter-blockchain communication.
“I am impressed by the Chainlink Network’s ability to scale to service smart contracts in DeFi, and I look forward to working with the team to harden CCIP’s security as it prepares to launch.”
The Chainlink network secures the vast majority – currently more than $75 billion – of DeFi. CCIP is the application of Chainlink’s highly secure consensus mechanism to cross-chain communication, which will allow developers to create more sophisticated cross-chain hybrid smart contracts that bring the speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of Web2 to the world of Web3.