Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov rang in the new year with a comprehensive view of Chainlink’s 2024 outlook. As the web3 industry’s leading decentralized computing platform, which has delivered 11.5+ billion data points onchain and enabled $9.5+ trillion in transaction value, Chainlink’s objectives include building the foundation for a global internet of contracts and unlocking tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) that serve as a golden record.
January was an exciting month for the entire crypto industry, with U.S. regulators approving spot bitcoin ETFs that significantly increase investor access to the world’s oldest and largest cryptocurrency.
Nazarov, who was featured on CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2023 list for bridging the gap between TradFi and DeFi through Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), told CoinDesk he expects Bitcoin ETFs will accelerate large top-tier financial firms’ participation in crypto markets.
“Bitcoin ETF approval has made it clear that traditional financial institutions have a significant role to play in determining how the crypto markets evolve,” he said.
In conversation with Swift’s Thomas Dugauquier and Euroclear’s Stephanie Lheureux on Global Custodian’s Smarter Securities podcast, Nazarov elaborated on how CCIP’s blockchain interoperability standard combined with other essential Chainlink services such as Price Feeds and Proof of Reserve facilitate dynamic, programmatic tokenized assets that could transform global finance.
January was also an eventful month for projects and protocols in the Chainlink ecosystem. Fast, scalable, developer-friendly L2, Base, which integrated Chainlink Price Feeds to enable externally connected DeFi applications and CCIP to power cross-chain capabilities, announced its integration of Chainlink Automation. Developers can now offload compute-heavy tasks to the Chainlink Network in order to build gas-efficient advanced applications.
Chainlink Functions, which allows web3 developers to connect dApps to any web2 API, officially launched in beta on Arbitrum One mainnet. Developers can now use Functions on-demand to build web2-connected dApps that optimize Arbitrum’s high-speed, low-cost transactions backed by Ethereum.
Chainlink Labs Chief Business Officer Johann Eid said the integration makes it possible to onboard the next million developers to web3 by giving them the web2 connectivity necessary to build feature-rich applications that combine the best of both worlds.
Rounding out a landmark January are 20 new Chainlink integrations including Morpho Labs’ integration of Chainlink Price Feeds to help secure the Morpho Blue protocol and Thales’ CCIP integration to enable cross-chain staking and rewards.
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