Fantom Integrates Chainlink as its Official Oracle Solution and Price Feed Mechanism for the FTM Token

Connor Hughes
Fantom Foundation
Published in
5 min readMar 31, 2020

Fantom is excited to integrate Chainlink as the official oracle solution recommended for use by all Fantom developers! After extensive research, we’ve identified Chainlink as an extremely secure and reliable decentralized oracle solution across every dimension of our evaluation. Because security and performance are the critical features of any Fantom application, we are integrating Chainlink as the default oracle solution to ensure that all Dapps built on Fantom can access Chainlink’s proven, secure, and high performing oracle infrastructure.

Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network will provide the Fantom ecosystem with secure and reliable market prices, such as Fantom-specific Price Reference Data Contracts, as well as real-time access to high-quality credentialed API data via Chainlink external adaptors. This enables Fantom developers to build scalable decentralized applications that are fully integrated with real-time data, sourced from only the most trusted sources.

The immediate focus of the integration will be on building scalable DeFi products to support a robust financial system on Fantom, including the creation of decentralized stablecoins for market stability, lending protocols for credit expansion, synthetic assets for hedging strategies, and more.

Subsequently, the Chainlink and Fantom teams will be working closely together, aiming to extend the range of DeFi use-cases that can be accommodated on-chain. Chainlink and Fantom are both market-leaders in speed and security of their respective products, reducing any bottlenecks in the performance of Dapps. Both teams are confident that the synergy of Chainlink and Fantom technologies will provide developers with the tools to push the boundaries of DeFi to a new level.

To realize this DeFi vision on Fantom, we require a stable pricing mechanism of the FTM token, particularly one that is pegged to fiat currency. The Fantom Foundation will be using and supporting an FTM/USD Price Reference Contract that will be used to compute the price of FTM in USD on the Opera mainnet. This allows users to easily calculate and budget network usage in currencies they are more accustomed to.

Decentralized Oracles are Critical to Data Security

Smart contracts are executed based on the fulfillment of certain criteria, such as whether or not a specific wallet address has a minimum number of tokens. But what happens if the information required to execute the smart contract is not stored in the underlying blockchain and resides off-chain? Oracles act as bridges between blockchains and the off-chain world, enabling off-chain events to trigger the execution of smart contracts when specified conditions are met.

However, connecting on-chain to off-chain is not an easy feat, the oracle mechanism connecting the systems needs to be as decentralized as the underlying blockchain to maintain end-to-end security. Having any central attack vector severely jeopardizes the entire security of the smart contract. Therefore, the oracle mechanism triggering a smart contract needs to be highly decentralized to stop malicious actors from manipulating the data feed and altering contract outcomes.

For example, if an application relies on a single, centralized oracle or even a small quorum of centralized oracles, an attacker could easily compromise these services to provide the wrong data feeds. This would cause enormous damage to users such as the loss of funds, and destroy the security reputation of the application.

Chainlink Provides the Most Secure and Accurate Market-Ready Price Oracles

Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks for Price Reference Data are highly decentralized at both the node operator and data source levels. They use multiple independent, Sybil resistant, and security reviewed node operators to retrieve pricing data to ensure that no one oracle is a single point of failure. Furthermore, the nodes retrieve quality data from multiple data aggregating APIs to ensure that no one data provider nor exchange is the single source of truth. This significantly reduces the likelihood of inaccurate data or faulty oracles that could compromise security.

Chainlink is the only operational oracle solution that provides smart contracts with unique access to credentialed data via their external adaptors. With Chainlink, Dapps on Fantom can unlock the highest quality data APIs, as premium datasets require credentialed/password-protected access. This brings important Sybil resistance to key data sources and increases both the quality and reliability as credentialed data are better maintained and run by professional data procurement companies.

Having Chainlink as the official oracle integrated as the default solution within Fantom will ensure that all data feeds supplied to Dapps on the Opera chain are highly secure, reliable, and performant. Being able to construct highly secure, scalable data-driven smart contracts on the Opera chain adds tremendous functionality to the Fantom ecosystem and vastly accelerates the number of use-cases available to developers.

Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network has already proven its ability to secure millions of dollars live on mainnet for numerous leading DeFi Dapps. This is why we have chosen Chainlink as the standard oracle used throughout the Fantom ecosystem.

As Michael Kong, CIO of Fantom, says, “After significant research focused on the key features that make the best oracle mechanism, Chainlink stood out as an extremely secure, accurate and reliable choice for getting off-chain data onto Fantom. We recommend that all Fantom developers use Chainlink as an oracle solution and we are excited to be using it for getting FTM’s own FTM/USD price into Fantom.”

About Chainlink

If you’re a developer and want to connect your smart contract to existing data and infrastructure outside the underlying blockchain, reach out to us here! We can help you quickly and securely launch your data-enabled application or Chainlink Price Reference Data Contract on mainnet today. You can also visit the developer documentation or join the technical discussion on Discord. Learn more by visiting the Chainlink website or follow us on Twitter or Reddit.

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments. It is well known for providing highly secure and reliable oracles to large enterprises (Google, Oracle, and SWIFT) and leading smart contract development teams such as Polkadot/Substrate, Synthetix, Loopring, Aave, OpenLaw, Conflux, and many others.

About Fantom

The Fantom Foundation is committed to building technology that is open-source, decentralized Dag-based distributed ledgers. We aim to create fast, secure, and scalable technologies across a wide range of industries, allowing organizations, businesses, and individuals to develop decentralized and secure applications, solving real-world problems.

Official Links for Fantom

Official Email Address: contact@fantom.foundation

Official Website Link: https://www.fantom.foundation

Official Discord Discussion Group: https://discord.gg/6V42Gs8

Official Telegram Announcements Channel: https://t.me/fantomfoundation

Official Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FantomFoundation/

Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/FantomFDN

Official Medium: https://medium.com/fantomfoundation

Official Github: https://github.com/Fantom-foundation

Official YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/fantomfoundation

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