In a recent presentation about the future of the Chainlink network, including 2022 initiatives like Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and staking within the Chainlink network, Chainlink Co-founder Sergey Nazarov detailed three significant phases of Chainlink’s evolution and how each benefits societies around the world.
A Set Of Decentralized Services
The Chainlink network began as a set of decentralized data feeds and services that power the smart contracts jumpstarting industries such as DeFi, NFTs, blockchain gaming, and decentralized insurance. New Chainlink data feeds from historically reliable sources such as the Associated Press and AccuWeather continue to spark new use cases and decentralized applications.
A Single Multi-Chain Interface
CCIP is a universal communication standard for messaging between blockchains that brings the speed, efficiency, and flexibility of Web2 to the development of Web3. CCIP will allow Chainlink to act as a single interface through which all enterprises and Web2 firms can scalably and reliably utilize any smart contract on any blockchain or layer 2. This will enable a multi-chain world where enterprises can use their existing systems to interact with all of their counterparties across all blockchains at the same time.
A Source Of Cryptographic Truth
The third and, in Nazarov’s view, most important stage of Chainlink’s evolution is the generation of a truth machine geared toward solving society’s most deep-seated problem: an inability to agree on what is true.
Nazarov said that subjective third parties using trust-based systems of paper promises are historically unable to reach consensus on an individual, institutional, and even societal level. “That is a serious problem. It’s a problem that’s worth solving; it’s a problem worth working on and it’s a body of work that I’m personally very excited to be a part of,” he said.
He believes everyone in the Chainlink ecosystem – developers, academics, security researchers, node operators, data providers and community members – has a role in taking the world from “something powered by paper guarantees and no shared truth to a world powered by cryptographic guarantees and definitive truth.”
During the past year, the Chainlink network grew to secure over $75 billion in smart contracts and the Chainlink ecosystem expanded well beyond 1,000 projects using Chainlink oracles. Nazarov said that an increasing breadth of data, value secured, reliability and security guarantees have all ascended to a “previously unreachable” point.
“If we continue to reach these new heights in providing cryptographic truth, I think it will continue to enable our industry to do more, and that’s what I’m extremely excited about doing.”
Watch Sergey Nazarov’s presentation on Chainlink as a source of cryptographic truth.