Chainlink

Another coin that we have on our To Do list is Chainlink. Let’s see what it has to offer, how it works and how it is standing in the world of cryptocurrency.

Background and History

Chainlink, or if you want the symbol, you can find on exchanges LINK. This token was created in 2017. The authors of its whitepaper are Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis.

In 2018, Chainlink integrated in its blockchain Town Crier, which is a system that can authenticate data feeds for smart contracts, also called “oracle”. This system is also being used by Ethereum.

In 2020, integration of another system called DECO happened. Now this system, which is also marked as “oracle”, is a privacy-preserving oracle protocol. By using its cryptographic techniques, it allows users to prove facts about their web sessions to oracles while hiding their privacy-sensitive data.

Understanding LINK

Now, when we have history marked as done, we can begin explaining the system on which LINK is running. Chainlink can be included in cryptocurrency and also blockchain technologies.

As a currency, it is used to pay LINK’s operators of network and also to ensure the platforms smart contract agreements.

As a blockchain technology, it is known as a decentralized oracle network or blockchain abstraction layer. LINK supports something called hybrid smart contracts. That is a blockchain technology that securely enables calculations on- and off-blockchain. Companies that are using the Chainlink blockchain can also access any of the major blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, and Terra.

The blockchain is hosted on Ethereum platform. This platform is using the proof-of-work protocol and is an open-source blockchain project, which means that anyone can view the project’s code and contribute to it.

Price

When talking about placement of the LINK in the ladder of cryptocurrencies, it is placed at 24th place with market cap at 6 billion dollars and price being, as of today, $13.6 per one coin. Its total supply is capped at 1 billion tokens, while now there are 467 million tokens in circulation.

LINK hit its All time high on May 10th, 2021, so about 10 months ago, when its price climbed to $52.7. Since then the price declined by 74,6%. Its all time low LINK hit on November 10, 2017, so about 4 years ago. The price at that time was at $0.14 and since then LINK gained 8928.9%.

Goals

Main goal of Chainlink blockchain — what they aim to — is to expand its support for blockchain environments. Another main goal is to facilitate new hybrid smart contracts. In these days, main chunk of data and records is stored within blockchains. So LINK will have several opportunities to connect blockchain networks with off-chain information. Just so you get the idea, in 2021, there were over 1000 projects that were included on the Chainlink network and together valued at over $75 billion.

Thank you for reading.