The Ape Society Integrates Chainlink VRF to Help Power DAO-Funded Community Raffles
We’re excited to announce that The Ape Society — an art- and utility-focused NFT project — has integrated Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF) on Polygon mainnet. By integrating the industry-leading decentralized oracle network, we now have access to a tamper-proof and auditable source of randomness needed to help ensure that a holder is selected in our community raffle in a provably random manner. Ultimately this creates a more exciting and transparent user experience, as users can verify exactly how the auction was conducted and share the results with other community members on social media.
The Ape Society raffle is a weekly raffle amongst the holders of The Ape Society NFTs. Using 10% of the royalties generated by the APE Society DAO, the raffle will select 7 winners, one from each of our seven classes. This gives users a chance to win prizes in ADA each week while continuing to participate in our community.
In order to help choose winners of our DAO raffles, we need access to a secure random number generator (RNG) that any user could independently audit. However, RNG solutions for smart contracts require several security considerations to prevent manipulation and ensure system integrity. For instance, RNG solutions derived from blockchain data like block hashes can be exploited by miners/validators, while off-chain RNG solutions derived from off-chain APIs are opaque and don’t provide users with definitive proof about the integrity of the process.
After reviewing various solutions, we selected Chainlink VRF because it’s based on cutting-edge academic research, supported by a time-tested oracle network, and secured through the generation and on-chain verification of cryptographic proofs that prove the integrity of each random number supplied to smart contracts.
Chainlink VRF works by combining block data that is still unknown when the request is made with the oracle node’s pre-committed private key to generate both a random number and a cryptographic proof. The Ape Society smart contract will only accept the random number input if it has a valid cryptographic proof, and the cryptographic proof can only be generated if the VRF process is tamper-proof. This provides our users with automated and verifiable assurances directly on-chain that our raffle is provably fair and was not tampered with by the oracle, outside entities, or the Ape Society team.
In the future, we plan to use Chainlink Keepers to help create an autonomous raffle process, allowing us to run the auction at the same time every week. This way, the application can run without requiring the manual oversight of the official team, and holders will also be able to anticipate and monitor exactly when the raffle happens.
In addition, we anticipate using Chainlink when it fully integrates with the Cardano blockchain in order to help process randomness in some of our game mechanisms.
“In addition to being developer-friendly, Chainlink’s time-tested infrastructure inspires confidence that our protocols use fair and verifiable randomness, helping give our community a stronger sense of security when participating in our upcoming events.” — Cardman
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains.
Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.
About The Ape Society
The Ape Society is a collection of 7,000 unique NFTs generated on the Cardano blockchain. Our characters each have a unique design generated from a set of traits. Some attributes are rarer than others, but every ape has its own sense of style and purpose. A first of its kind, each of our apes have a first and last name that tells a story of its origin, family, and class. Holders are taken on an adventure through the history of The Ape Society through lore, community, and art.
In addition to receiving a one-of-a-kind NFT, each ape acts as a ticket to join The Ape Society DAO. Holders can also stake their apes to earn SOCIETY token, which can be used within our 3D cabin ecosystem, as well as for merch and fun community initiatives
