Today, Chainlink Labs, the organization developing the blockchain industry’s leading oracle network, announced two key executive hires – former Diem CTO Dr. Dahlia Malkhi and former LinkedIn VP Mike Derezin. Malkhi and Derezin are among other recent high-profile additions to Chainlink Labs, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Diem co-creator Christian Catalini, who joined an already esteemed roster of advisors including former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and Cornell computer science professor Ari Juels.
Derezin, who helped scale two market-leading businesses, Learning Solutions and Sales Solutions, over more than a decade at LinkedIn, is now Chief Operating Officer leading Chainlink Labs’ expansion through operational excellence. Malkhi, who was CTO and lead maintainer of Meta’s blockchain-based stablecoin payment system, Diem, as well as lead researcher at Novi, Meta’s digital wallet, is now Chief Research Officer at Chainlink Labs.
CEO of Chainlink Labs, Sergey Nazarov, commended Malkhi as “one of the foremost experts on decentralized systems consensus” and “an ideal addition to the Chainlink Labs research team” as it continues to develop critical web3 infrastructure, most notably its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which is expected to launch this year.
Of her decision to join Chainlink Labs in building “the undisputed leader” in decentralized oracle networks and services, Malkhi said, “I was drawn in by the existing team of experienced researchers at Chainlink Labs and the team’s laser focus on the critical technologies needed to advance Web3 and create more secure, transparent, and truth-based infrastructure for all.”
Since its 2019 mainnet launch, the Chainlink network grew to secure over $75 billion in smart contracts by the end of 2021, while the Chainlink ecosystem surpassed 1,000 projects spanning industries such as decentralized finance (DeFi), parametric insurance, and blockchain-based gaming. Nazarov has consistently emphasized Chainlink Labs’ aim to transcend the world’s fallible system of “paper guarantees” with infrastructure that allows anyone to form agreements backed by cryptographic truth.
Malkhi, who previously spent more than a decade at Microsoft Research and has authored more than 100 publications examining the reliability and security of distributed systems, said, “I’m looking forward to expanding the in-house innovation capabilities at Chainlink Labs, leveraging our existing technology advantage as a springboard to solidify Chainlink offerings as the industry standard for trust-minimized blockchain services.”