Chainlink building on breakout 2020 success

ChainLink (LINK) the crypto space’s premier decentralized oracle network had a breakout year in 2020. The network is built on Ethereum and is designed to connect off-chain data sources, such as APIs, data feeds, or bank payments, to on-chain smart contracts. It provides secure and reliable oracles to large enterprises like Google, Oracle and SWIFT as well as smart contract development teams such as Polkadot/Substrate, Synthetix, Loopring, Aave, OpenLaw and Conflux.

The LINK price began 2020 trading at USD1.76 and increased 540% during the year to close at $11.27. his bullish price has continued into 2021. Year-to-date the price of LINK has risen 86% and currently trades for ~USD21.04. It touched an all-time high of USD23.55 on January 17th 2021 and has been an alpha performer amongst large cap assets so far this year.

Chainlinkecosystem.com says that there are currently 390 projects integrated with Chainlink network technology. Industries encompassed by the integrators range from data providers, DeFi, NFT, health, sports, real estate and retail. Chainlink currently offers 42 different decentralized price feeds for fiat pairs, 31 different decentralized price feeds for crypto pairs and two proof of reserve stablecoin feeds.

In October 2020 Chainlink partnered with Everpedia to build oracle infrastructure to sign and publish US election race calls on the blockchain. Further diversifying the data it offers, Chainlink announced last August that it will be providing decentralized weather data for insurance startup Arbol.

In February 2020, Chainlink announced that it would be supporting its first blockchain ecosystem outside of Ethereum, Polkadot. The post announcing the integration stated that by being the first Substrate-based oracle solution, Chainlink is “set to become the first and primary oracle provider for all Substrate-based chains and eventually the entire Polkadot network.“

In 2020 Chainlink also sait it would be integrating with Tezos – taking tts scope beyond just the Ethereum blockchain and providing real time data for the Tezos community in partnership with Tezos developers Smart Chain Arena and Cryptonomic.

The Chainlink DeFi play

The decentralized-finance (DeFi) sector is one of the most frequent Chainlink collaborators with 146 DeFi projects using Chainlink technology – including Zapper.fi, DODO and Opium. The oracles that Chainlink offers provide real-time market data that is essential for DeFi solutions to offer competitive, seamless solutions like trading and cheap credit to customers.

DeFi protocols can either use existing oracle networks or create their own oracles to source this data and it is often cheaper and more pragmatic for them to use services like Chainlink. In a blog post following Aave’s integration with Chainlink in January 2020, Emilio Frangella a software engineer at the borrowing and lending protocols said: “We believe that decentralized oracles are going to be the key for any DeFi platform in the future, and we are proud to be the first open-source decentralized money market protocol to leverage their services.”

In June 2020, Chainlink was recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the “100 most promising Technology Pioneers of 2020”. The trend of institutional endorsements continued in 2021. Gartner cited Chainlink in a January 13th blog titled “3 Blockbuster Blockchain Trends in 2021”. One of the trends the firm backs is Blockchain Middleware Abstraction Layers that allow enterprises to adopt complex blockchain technology. Chainlink is referenced by Gartner as an entrepreneurial company that will contribute to these solutions by providing services as a trusted integration broker.

LINK metrics continue strong uptrend

The strong price performance of LINK tokens has been backed a number of bullish metrics. 2020 was breakout year for daily active address activity on Chainlink. On January 1st 2020, for example, the network averaged 970 active addresses. As of January 17th 2021 this number has increased to over 13,000 active addresses – constituting a ~1253% increase. Source: IntoTheBlock

The rise in active addresses has been accompanied by a rise in addresses with non-zero balances. On January 1st, 2020 the network registered 82,390 non-zero addresses. As of January 17th, 2021 that number was 344,710, constituting a 318% increase in just over a year. Source: IntoTheBlock

These new users have contributed to a rise in transaction volume on the Chainlink network. On January 1st 2020, there were 1650 transactions on the network. On January 17th 2021, that number was 19,950 – constituting a 1,109% increase in just over a year. In US dollar terms, the value of total transactions over the same period rose from ~USD3.07 million a day to ~USD424.4 million a day. This constitutes a 13691% increase.Source: IntoTheBlock

Source: IntoTheBlock

Despite the surge in its network traffic Chainlink improved its transaction efficiency in 2020, with onchain data showing the average time between transactions has dropped since the beginning of 2020 when it stood at~1 minute. As of January 17th 2021, the average time between Chainlink transactions is ~17 seconds.Source: Intotheblock

Turning to social metrics, Google trends data for the term ‘Chainlink’ hit an all-time-high in August 2020 around the time of a major spike in the LINK price. Chainlink is popular search term in European regions, with a high proportion of ‘Chainlink’ searches in countries like Finland, Slovenia and the Netherlands.Source: Google Trends

Data from the official Chainlink Telegram group indicates that there has been a steady uptick in membership since the start of the year.. On January 1st 2020, the group had 12,890 members and the number rose to 24,160 by January 17th 2021 – a rise of ~87% in just over a year. Source: IntoTheBlock

Twitter sentiment data is based on a machine learning algorithm which infers the overall sentiment of messages discussing a particular crypto-asset and its tickers. There has been a increase in general chatter about Chainlink and LINK since the start of 2020, which has been accompanied by a rise in positive mentions.Source: IntoTheBlock

Chainlink development and grant expansion

The Chainlink project has 123 repos on Github with the most active accruing over 4,000 commits over the past year from 33 developers. Most coins use the developer community of Github where files are saved in folders called "repositories," or "repos," and changes to these files are recorded with "commits," which save a record of what changes were made, when, and by who. Although commits represent quantity and not necessarily quality, a higher number of commits can signify higher dev activity and interest.
Source: GitHub
Source: IntoTheBlock

On July 31, 2020 Chainlink introduced a community grant program.The blog post announcing the program said: “As the Chainlink Network’s usage, network size, and technical community is now entering a new stage of rapid growth, we do feel it’s important to continually support that growth through a Chainlink Community Grant Program.” Groups being supported by the community grants include university researchers, DeFi and blockchain developers.

In October 2020, Chainlink announced that it would award a blockchain integration grant of USD100,000 (with the potential for ongoing revenue and maintenance of the integration) for projects integrating Chainlink’s oracle network into blockchain partnerships that need high quality Chainlink oracles on their chain.

Other Chainlink 2020 highlights

Chainlink buys DECO from Cornell University

30 August 2020: Chainlink continues its infrastructure build-out by acquiring new technology for utilizing HTTPS/TLS developed at Cornell University. DECO . Developed by Dr. Ari Juels, the DECO technology optimizes HTTPS/TLS for data transmission across the internet. Juels is a former Chief Scientist at RSA Labs and is best known for his work formalizing Proof of Work which is used to secure crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. More

Binance Smart Chain testnet integrates Chainlink

24 July 2020: Binance has confirmed it has successfully integrated Chainlink oracles into the testnet of the Binance Smart Chain. Binance says the integration will enable developers working with the Binance Smart Chain to build smart contract applications that ca connect to real-world data feeds from Chainlink. Once launched, the Binance Smart Chain will run in parallel with Binance Chain. It is described as a smart contract blockchain delivering programmability which is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Binance has not yet confirmed a launch date for its smart chain. More

Chainlink will be a part of Bancor V2 launch pool

22 July 2020: Bancor has announced Chainlink (LINK) as a Bancor V2 launch pool asset. Bancor says with LINK as part of the launch pool, LINK holders can provide liquidity and gain yield from their LINK by being allocated a share of trading fees from the pool, while at the same time being able to maintain their ‘long’ position with the asset. Although Bancor previously announced Bancor V2 would be live in July, it advises that the V2 code is still going through audits and a bug bounty program. More

Chainlink trading live on ZebPay

21 July 2020: Indian founded exchange ZebPay has announced LINK pairs including LINK and the Indian Rupee are now available. Established in 2014, ZebPay supports transactions from 168 countries and is currently headquartered in Singapore. More

GET Protocol integrates Chainlink VRF

18 July 2020: GET Protocol, the blockchain based ticketing project has integrated Chainlink’s Verified Randomness Function to its ticketing solution. In simple terms, Chainlink’s VRF will provide assurance that in the case of fans who are waiting for tickets to an event that ends up being sold out/oversubcribed, all fans in the queue will have a verfiably equal chance of being able to purchase tickets as the GET Protocol shuffles the IDs in the line – and the randomness is verified by Chainlink VRF. More

Kardiachain & ENS to Integrate Chainlink

16 July 2020: KardiaChain has announced it is integrating Chainlink as the oracle solution for devs building on its chain. Kardia says its initial focus will be on Chainlink supplied sports results for its eSports Incentive Platform. ENS (the Ethereum Name Service) has also stated it has integrated Chainlink’s ETH/USD price as the oracle for its platform. More

Coinbase Pro supporting Chainlink order books in Europe and the UK from July 21st

15 July 2020: Coinbase has announced support for Chainlink in its non US jurisdictions across Europe and the UK commencing July 21st. New order books will be available for LINK-EUR and LINK-GBP pairs. Coinbase says the introduction will unroll over 3 stages with full trading beginning at 7am Pacific time. Algorand, XRP and XTZ pairs will also be introduced in those territories at the same time. More

Binance launches Chainlink “leveraged token”

15 July 2020: Binance says it will list new pairs of Binance Leveraged Tokens for ADA and LINK. The company says its leveraged tokens are tradeable assets – off chain tokens – that “give users leveraged exposure to the underlying asset”, with every leveraged token representing a basket of perpetual contract positions. Binance says its off chain LINKUP token will offer traders leveraged gains when the LINK price goes up, while LINKDOWN with offer similar gains if the LINK price goes down. More

NEXO partners with Chainlink

9 July 2020: Crypto lending platform Nexo has announced a partnership with ChainLink, a decentralized oracle network built on Ethereum.The new partnership with ChainLink will boost Nexo’s security and enable increased custody of user funds, greater loan volumes, and a more active OTC desk. ChainLink (LINK) is a decentralized oracle network built on Ethereum (ETH). The network is designed to connect off-chain data sources, such as APIs, data feeds, or bank payments, to on-chain smart contracts. The Chainlink price is up almost 25% since the LINK news was announced. More

Kyberswap using Chainlink oracles for price feed

15 June 2020: The KyberSwap exchange recently announced that it is using Chainlink Price Reference Data to update asset prices. This allows users to utilize an on-chain oracle verification system to price assets whenever they are performing a token swap on the exchange.Chainlink’s price feed will act as a complement to the existing pricing model KyberSwap uses with its native Kyber Network protocol feeds. More

PODCAST: The Chainlink and Synthetix DeFi bull case

28 May 2020: Thesis-driven venture firm Framework Ventures are bullish on DeFi in general, and particularly on Chainlink and Synthetix. Framework co-founder Vance Spencer, Vance says DeFi is still early and just needs time to mature and his company are major holders of the LINK coin. Listen Here

Celcius Network and Chainlink partnership revealed

8 April 2020: Celsius has a new partnership with Chainlink that appears to benefit both companies. Celsius will hold several million dollars worth of Chainlink’s crypto assets in its interest-bearing wallets. This means that Celsius is providing a secure treasury service to Chainlink, which is able to earn interest on its assets, as well as being able to borrow dollars if needed, without the need to sell assets. This is the same service available to both individuals and companies with a need to earn interest or borrow against their crypto assets without wanting to sell them. More

Ethereum Classic & Polkadot integrate with Chainlink

4 March 2020: Polkadot, has integrated making it the first project beyond Ethereum to introduce decentralized oracles. Polkadot devs can now rely on Chainlink’s oracles to securely connect to virtually any external, real-world resource, Market data feeds, off-chain APIs or data from traditional markets, could all be linked to on-chain smart contracts and into the parachains on the Polkadot network. More

PODCAST: Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov

19 December 2019: Sergey Nazarov’s company Chainlink are leading the smart contract oracle revolution and he sees smart contracts as an extremely reliable form of automation that will unlock huge value in the financial system. And, as he tells host Andy Pickering, he’s also a big Star Trek fan. Listen here.