2020 altcoin season has arrived and we have started seeing a lot of up and down trend in Altcoin community. There is no doubt to said that 2020 is a mixture year for Altcoin market.Among those Chainlink has been included in the first category and it has been one of the best altcoin so far.
What is chainlink
Chainlink developed by Sergey Nazarov, and Steve Ellis is a decentralised oracle network that provides offchain data to an onchain resources. The first ICO was held in September 2017.
It provides reliable input and output data for a complex smart contract on any blockchain. It basicaly act as a middleman between two different environment and bridges the two.It aims in connecting smart contracts with data from the real world and is like a connecting link between blockchain world and the real world.
Blockchain is a decentralised network that operates on parameter within their environment that are generaly secure. But inorder to make blockchain realy useful in the real world they need to get information about data that are external to them. This data is needed in order to settle decentralised smart contract that are dependent on them. But most of this data came from centralised sources and there is no guarented that all the data so collected are correct and are not manipulated by centralised entity. Moreover relying on limited data source are hard to spot any mistake.And chainlink is trying to solved many of this problem of centralised data.
With the use of an oracle node chainlink blockchain is trying to develop a decentralised network of this orcale. A trustless network where an offchain data can easily be acess and verified. With the emergence of smart contract like Ethereum the need of chainlink network has become a necesary element.
What is LINK token
Rank#14
Price-4.47$
Available- Binance exchange
Website- https://chain.link/
LINK, the cryptocurrency native to the Chainlink is used to pay node operators. It is an Etherum based ERC677 token but not exacted an ERC20 token. An ERC 677 is a traditional ERC20 but with an additional trasfer and call functionality. Which means this token can be receive and process by contract within a single transaction. LINK token has a maximum supply of 1 billion token. Link token can be used in two ways
- As a payment method to all the node operator by smart contract creator for the offchain data they are providing. They are also paying to the nodes operator for formating data into blockchain redable formate
- As a bond to run a chainlink node. And the main purpose of this bone is to guarantes an uptime from the node.
Uses of chainlink
With chainlink there is no problem of collecting any centralised data as it is already secure in the chainlink blockchain itself in order to verify. But chainlink is not only about connecting offchain to smart contract data but also to provide a solution to connect to different blockchain .
Blockchain interopalabilty is a well knowm problem. And there had been many project trying to cracked the project with limited degree of sucess. But chainlink on the otherhand act as a sorce of internet blockchain connecting different blockchain all in one go.
Marketing model of LINK
When it comes to demand for link to pay the node operator, it is based on how many transaction are taking place on the network. As more smart contract developer start utilising the oracle service they will be needing link token in order to settle their data request.
And ERC677 token is necessary instead of other token in chainlink because of ita transfer and call functionality which other token standard don't have . And this is also important in chainlink for its economic model.
Smart contract operator will need to collect link in order to pay for their offchain data. If there are more users in the system then they will increase the price of the service and hence demad for link will increase. An increase in demand of LINK with a constant supply will leads to its increase in price.
How valuable is LINK token
A network can have an amzing token economic but if it isn't been adopted then its nothing but just a nice concept. The growth of chainlink is pretty amazing and quite extraordinary within a short period of time. All its growth can be traced back from its 2019 end of year review. The total amount of network actively attributate to oracle job is huge and numerous unlike other blockchain which only use for transfering token onto an offexchanges to trade.
Chainlink has being used as it was intended to be . Over 80% of the activity was related to oracle job. The amount of smart contract that are using link token is a perfect example of utility demand on the network. Above all a large part of growth is attributed to DeFi ecosystem. DeFi app naturaly need to reference offchain data in order to settle their smart contract and hence chainlink appear to be their main partner.
Chainlink collaboration and partnership
One of the major growth of chainlink is because of it healthy partnership with many other giant platform.Synthetix a DeFi based crypto project had announced their collaboration with Chainlink to bring decentralised price feeds to Ethereum. Bringing Chainlink oracle technology to Synthetix platform.when it comes to DeFi Chainlink is the second most valuable asset in terms of total locked up value in DeFipulse.com.
Another DeFi project on the list that used chainlink tenchnology is Bancor. Bancor V2 will have a market an alternate market maker liquidity pool which will use Chainlink based oracle.
Moreover Celsius network has also teamed up with Chainlink inorder to create superior financial platform througj decentralisation.
Chainlink partnership also extend beyond Ethereum ecosystem as Polkadot a network for connecting and blockchain application becomes the first non ethereum to integrate with Chainlink. Besides tezos company had also announced integrating with Chainlink oracles to tazos based smart contract.
Chainlink community
Chainlink community is know as Marine. It is a highly effective team that can take up against any army. Theire community seems to be lot more rational and dedicated than other crypto cummunity. Tyler Winklevoss CEO of Gemini exchange had also shared his view about chainlink community and their listing of chainlink in Gemini exchange.
Chainlink exchange listing
Chainlink has also done pretty well in exchange platform. They secure a must coveted COINBASE listing in 2019. Which as a reason shows a explotion in trading volumn and price. It is also listed in many popular exchange platform like Binance, kraken,Gemini, Bittrex, OKex etc. But for People in NewYork there is an exception in buying Chainlink legaly from Gemini exchange, allowing to exchange USD with Chainlink.
Conclusion
The technology used in Chainlink project is massive and highly advance in crypto space. Hence LINK is widely traded with strong liquidity in most of the market trading pairs.
