CHAINLINK: P2P Validator as a node operator and The Synthetix-Chainlink integration

Paradigm
Paradigm
Published in
7 min readDec 24, 2019

Biweekly update 10th December — 24th December

P2P Validator, a world-leading staking provider with the best industry security practices and proven expertise, announced the launch of the Chainlink node with the mission of providing smart-contracts with the required data feeds in an increasingly decentralized manner. P2P Validator maintains high-availability nodes and provides secure staking services for the most groundbreaking projects in the blockchain space.

The Synthetix-Chainlink integration is now live on Ethereum, providing accurate, decentralized price feeds. This represents a major breakthrough in end-to-end security for DeFi applications, as one of the first working products to decentralize both the smart contract execution and the data oracle layer. By offloading data feeds to Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks, Synthetix assets will be driven by reliably tamper-proof inputs, greatly contributing to the project’s goal of censorship resistance. Traders on Synthetix.Exchange can now trade a selection of synthetic assets with infinite liquidity and no slippage, with the comfort of knowing their prices are being transferred on-chain by a pool of independent nodes backed by economic incentives, rather than any central party.

More to follow!

Development

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Finance

Token holders and the number of transactions (information from Etherscan.io)

Node operators

The question of blockchains having trustless connection with external data is significant for the real-world implementation of highly functional smart-contracts in both new and traditional industries. Not only do they require connection to external resources, but the off-chain connection must maintain the same properties of decentralized security currently available on the underlying blockchain. With that in mind, P2P Validator is thrilled to announce the launch of the Chainlink node with the mission of providing smart-contracts with the required data feeds in an increasingly decentralized manner.

Decentralized oracles solve smart contract’s lack of connection with external resources without sacrificing trustworthiness. This keeps digital agreements reliable and tamper-proof end-to-end, which is crucial for real-world usage. This vision is in line with the mission to promote the value of blockchain assets and give people access to the emerging data-driven economy.

The developer team has extensive experience in setting up secure infrastructure. P2P Validator maintains high-availability nodes and provides secure staking services for the most groundbreaking projects in the blockchain space. The node infrastructure is under advanced monitoring with 24/7 technical support, backups and alerts.

About P2P Validator

P2P Validator is a world-leading staking provider with the best industry security practices and proven expertise. We provide comprehensive due-diligence of digital assets and offer only top-notch staking opportunities. At the time of publishing, more than 30 million of USD value is staked with P2P Validator by over 700 delegators across 7+ networks.

Roadmap

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Partnerships and team members

The Synthetix-Chainlink integration is now live on Ethereum, providing accurate, decentralized price feeds. This represents a major breakthrough in end-to-end security for DeFi applications, as one of the first working products to decentralize both the smart contract execution and the data oracle layer.

By offloading data feeds to Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks, Synthetix assets will be driven by reliably tamper-proof inputs, greatly contributing to the project’s goal of censorship resistance. Traders on Synthetix.Exchange can now trade a selection of synthetic assets with infinite liquidity and no slippage, with the comfort of knowing their prices are being transferred on-chain by a pool of independent nodes backed by economic incentives, rather than any central party.

The launch of this partnership is a major step forward for DeFi protocols, demonstrating that oracles, previously a potential point of failure, can be solved by blockchain technology. It proves that projects requiring external price feeds can be migrated to the blockchain without jeopardising the ecosystem’s core principle of decentralization.

Synthetix founder, Kain Warwick, says this partnership is one of the most significant milestones so far in the project’s history. “Given our reliance on regular price feeds for our derivatives trading mechanism, finding a robust decentralized oracle solution has always been at the top of our priority list. Chainlink delivers the solution, deployed by an excellent team and supported by an invaluable community.”

As this is the first iteration of the integration, a select group of Synthetix’s FX and commodity price feeds have been chosen for the initial deployment:

The first wave of assets are FX currencies and commodities, which are important to users visiting Synthetix.Exchange for the first time, given that many traders already have experience trading them. Decentralizing these price feeds allows traders on Synthetix.Exchange to gain exposure to more traditional assets on-chain, while remaining in full custody of their funds, a first for the cryptocurrency space.

Each of the asset links above provides a detailed look into the oracle network that’s securing the particular price feed. To maintain decentralization, Synthetix is working with numerous independent Chainlink nodes that are spread out among the seven price networks. Each node has been security reviewed and has a proven track record of successfully providing data to Chainlink’s Reference Contracts for several months without any security or reliability concerns. As the Chainlink network expands, Synthetix will look into further expanding the number of nodes and/or diversifying the nodes used to prevent overlapping within the oracle networks if necessary. Effectively, Chainlink’s oracle network can help Synthetix.Exchange scale in a secure and customizable manner as the value secured by Synthetix increases.

Given FX markets close over the weekend, and there is currently no mechanism to pause trading, there is a small chance of a positive black swan event if a fiat currency is expected to experience major price appreciation over a weekend. The Synthetix team is aware of this possibility, and is investigating solutions.

To ensure accurate data feeds, the oracles will update the on-chain price based on a price deviation model, as well as a minimum time-based update. Since maintaining accurate prices during times of high volatility is extremely important for the security of every DeFi application, the oracle networks will update the price on-chain every 1% change from the previous price. It will also provide an on-chain update at a minimum of once every hour even if volatility is low. This is the strongest model to date in the DeFi ecosystem and will continue to improve as both teams work together to fine-tune it for maximum security and effectiveness.

Once these live assets have been proven to work successfully with Chainlink’s inputs, Synthetix and Chainlink will look to integrate another wave of synthetic assets, including cryptocurrencies and indices. As mentioned by Kain in an interview with Crypto Finder, in the future Synthetix hopes to decentralize the selection process for assets by enabling the Synthetix community the ability to approach Chainlink’s network of nodes and request new asset price feeds, as opposed to the Synthetix team managing the entire asset-listing process. This is yet another way Synthetix is focused on continuing to decentralize the platform and remove any central point of control.

Rumors

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The graph above illustrates changes in the number of Chainlink Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.

This report is not financial advice.

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