What Is Chainlink (LINK)?

Founded in 2017, Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink allows blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events and payment methods, providing the critical off-chain information needed by complex smart contracts to become the dominant form of digital agreement.

The Chainlink Network is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors and more. The company focuses on ensuring that decentralized participation is guaranteed for all node operators and users looking to contribute to the network.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Chainlink.

Who Are the Founders of Chainlink?

Sergey Nazarov is a co-founder and CEO at Chainlink Labs. He graduated with a degree in business administration from New York University, with a focus on philosophy and administration. His professional career began as a teaching fellow at NYU Stern School of Business. In 2009, Nazarov co-founded ExistLocal, a peer-to-peer marketplace for authentic local experiences.

In 2014, he also co-founded CryptaMail, a completely decentralized, blockchain-based email service. In 2014, Nazarov teamed up with Steve Ellis and launched SmartContract, a platform that brings smart contracts to life by connecting them to external data and widely accepted bank payments. SmartContract was one of the entrepreneurial ventures that led Sergey Nazarov to the founding of Chainlink.

Steve Ellis graduated with a degree in computer science from New York University in 2010. Right after graduating, he became a software engineer at Pivotal Labs. In 2014, he co-founded the Secure Asset Exchange, a company facilitating easy web access to a decentralized asset exchange.

What Makes Chainlink Unique?

Chainlink is one of the first networks to allow the integration of off-chain data into smart contracts. With many trusted partners, Chainlink is one of the major players in the data processing field. Due to the integration of off-chain data, Chainlink has attracted the attention of numerous trusted data providers, including Brave New Coin, Alpha Vantage and Huobi. Data providers can sell access to data directly to Chainlink, thus monetizing the information they have.

As a decentralized network, Chainlink allows users to become node operators and earn revenue by running critical data infrastructure required for blockchains’ success. Chainlink uses a large collection of node operators to collectively power a wide range of decentralized Price Feed oracle networks live in-production, which currently secure billions in value for leading DeFi applications like Synthetix, Aave, Compound and more.

Chainlink and Google, Introduction of Staking in 2022

Chainlink has grown from aggregating and providing cryptocurrency price data to DeFi protocols like Aave, to a lot more. The ecosystem currently access over 1B data points, securing over $75B in value through 1,000 project integrations with 700 oracle networks. Mainstream organizations like AccuWeather, FedEx, FlightStats and the Associated Press have partnered with Chainlink for data verification. However, one of the biggest wins Chainlink have secured is onboarding Eric Schmidt, ex-Google chairman and CEO, as a technical advisor to the oracle network protocol. According to Schmidt, "Chainlink is a secret ingredient to unlocking the potential of smart contract platforms and revolutionizing business and society," and he is interested in helping Chainlink build a world powered by truth. Schmidt joins other notable Chainlink advisors including former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and DocuSign co-founder Tom Gonser.

On the roadmap for 2022, Chainlink will finally rollout staking for LINK holders to secure the network and earn rewards. Chainlink has been working on a staking solution for years, however oracle networks are not a blockchain but a form of decentralized computing. Co-founder Nazarov explained that Chainlink does not produce blocks but “make consensus on hundreds of oracle networks about price data.” He says the team is finally satisfied with the security and scalability of the consensus mechanism and ready to launch staking this year.

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Find out more about other Oracle platforms like UMA and Band Protocol.

Read more about Oracles and learn how they work.

Find out more in our deep dive on Chainlink and our technical analysis on Chainlink price now!

Learn more about Decentralized Data Governance.

Want to keep track of Chainlink price live? Download the CoinMarketCap mobile app!

Curious about the crypto space? Read our educational section — Alexandria.

Securing the Chainlink Oracle Network With Staking

In December 2021, the Chainlink oracle network introduced the staking of the LINK token to promote "sustainable growth and security."

With LINK staking, Chainlink intends to bring a new layer of "crypto economic" security to the oracle network. It will do this by giving ecosystem participants, including node operators and community members, the ability to increase the security of Chainlink's oracle services by backing them with staked LINK tokens.

This functions just like other crypto-staking platforms where participants in a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network have to lock up a specific amount of tokens to contribute to the security of the network.

How Will LINK Staking Work?

At present, Chainlink has been criticized for its dependence on a limited number of trusted nodes despite its efforts to be as decentralized as possible. However, LINK staking intends to remove this concern.

LINK staking will introduce rewards and penalties to incentivize the proper operation of the Chainlink oracle network. It will also enhance the ability of node operators to receive tasks and earn fees within the Chainlink network.

In this system, participants will lock up their LINK tokens as collateral. This collateral can be taxed or “slashed” if a node misreports data. The LINK tokens taxed from dishonest validators will be redistributed as earnings to honest validators.

The developers of Chainlink hope that the introduction of this crypto-economic security should make the cost of attacking the network's price oracle greater than the potential profits an attack would generate. This is a similar gamification strategy that blockchain networks, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, depend on.

Similarly, LINK holders that do not run their own node can participate in staking by delegating their tokens to a trusted node operator. Chainlink developers estimate that the staking program will offer a 5% return initially from a combination of emissions from the Treasury and fees paid by users of Chainlink's data feeds, and it will ultimately rely on only fees earned by the network.

The participation of community members in staking will further incentivize node operators to remain honest. Participants will be able to choose where to delegate their stake through reputation scores given to node operators that consistently provide valid data feeds.

Chainlink Economics 2.0

The first iteration of LINK staking, named version 0.1, is expected to be launched by the end of 2022. Its success will determine the launch time for version 1.0 and then a full version with all functionalities, named 2.0.

The launch of LINK staking will officially kick off the Chainlink Economics 2.0 era. Chainlink's co-founder, Sergey Nazarov, believes that this era will usher in society's inevitable shift to cryptographically guaranteed systems.

“A society powered by cryptographic guarantees needs a system of cryptographic truth to prove what happened, whether that’s about random numbers, market data, weather events, or even just computations that the trust-minimized application needs. This is the world that we’re moving towards," Nazarov said in an interview.

How Many Chainlink (LINK) Coins Are There in Circulation?

During the initial coin offering (ICO) for LINK in September 2017, Chainlink announced a total and maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 LINK tokens. The current supply is about 453,509,553 LINK tokens, or about 45% of the total supply, as of end-September 2021. The Chainlink price at ICO was $0.11 and a total of 350 million LINK tokens were sold. This represents an over 200X from the ICO price to Chainlink price today.

Chainlink price experienced a massive bull run in the period around mid-2019 to mid-2020. Chainlink bulls were colloquially referred to as “LINK Marines,'' becoming a well-known meme in the crypto community. Chainlink price reached an all-time high of $52.88 on May 9, 2021, on the back of an overall crypto market rally, as well as ongoing developments in the Chainlink ecosystem.

According to the ICO documentation, 35% of the total token supply will go towards node operators and the incentivization of the ecosystem. Another 35% of LINK tokens were distributed during public sale events. Lastly, the remaining 30% of the total token supply was directed towards the company for the continued development of the Chainlink ecosystem and network.

How Is the Chainlink Network Secured?

As an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, Chainlink is secured by the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Unlike the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus utilized by Bitocin, PoS relies on the amount of staked tokens for selecting node validators.

PoS protocols were created with the idea to battle the vast power consumption required by PoW systems. PoS models are becoming increasingly popular as they need less electrical power and are easily scalable. While PoW has proven itself a reliable consensus mechanism, Ethereum and all other ERC-20 tokens have been growing rapidly and setting the trend in the space.

Where Can You Buy Chainlink (LINK)?

Chainlink and the LINK token are among the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market. Considering this, a lot of exchanges have pushed to start offering trades in LINK. One top exchange to buy Chainlink is Binance.

Other exchanges offering trades in LINK include:

• Huobi Global
• Coinbase Pro
• Gate.io
• Kraken

It is important to consider the fact that investing in cryptocurrency carries risk, just like any other investment.

To check Chainlink price live in the fiat currency of your choice, you can use CoinMarketCap’s converter feature directly on the Chainlink currency page. Alternatively, use the dedicated exchange rate converter page. Popular Chainlink price pairs include: LINK/USD, LINK/GBP, LINK/AUD and LINK/EUR.

You can read more about how to enter the market and how to buy BTC, LINK or any other token on CoinMarketCap’s education portal — Alexandria.