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The Journey To Chainlink Functions

Earlier this month at ETHDenver, Chainlink announced the beta launch of Chainlink Functions, a serverless web3 development platform that leverages Chainlink oracles to seamlessly deliver web2 data on-chain.

During a presentation with Google Developer Advocate, Allen Day, who demonstrated how quickly and easily developers can start building with Functions, Chainlink co-founder, Steve Ellis, and Chainlink Labs Product Lead, Bryan Jowers, conveyed the significance of Chainlink Functions’ launch within the history of the Chainlink Network.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Ellis said, reflecting on nearly a decade spent developing smart contracts. Even as Chainlink Price Feeds grew to enable tens of trillions of dollars in transaction value throughout decentralized finance (DeFi), he said web3 developers still needed the ability to seamlessly integrate data from web2 APIs for the industry to truly take off. 

Jowers explained how Chainlink’s Any API service laid the foundation for Functions by allowing developers to create their own external adapter and recruit node operators to bring API data on-chain. While Any API worked, it required developers to manage their own Chainlink node, was single-source, and took weeks to implement.

“Any API has lots of pain points,” he explained, “but a lot of potential.”

He said Chainlink Functions removes Any API’s pain points, empowering developers to focus on the core code of what they want to build by outsourcing the complexity of connecting with web2 data in a trust-minimized way to Chainlink’s battle-tested decentralized oracle networks.

“This is web3’s serverless moment,” he said. “If you look back at what happened with the internet – when such a thing happened, innovation took off.”

When it comes to connectivity with social media, IoT devices, payment systems, machine learning, data storage, etc., Jowers explained, “These are things that the internet takes for granted. But we [web3] still have this limitation of no access. This is what we’re changing.”

Addressing ETHDenver’s developer audience, along with numerous startups, hackathon projects, and top web2 companies, like Google, that are already innovating with Functions, he concluded:

“It’s up to you guys to show us what’s possible.”

To learn more about Chainlink Functions, read the official blog post. Sign up for the Chainlink Functions beta program here.

Watch the full presentation at ETHDenver.

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