Nov 12, 2019
CHAINLINK: Prophet as a Node Operator and Partnership with FCLA
Biweekly update 29th October — 12th November
Prophet, a team of blockchain enthusiasts and early adopters, is joining a decentralized oracle network by becoming a Reviewed Chainlink Node Operator. Its mission is to connect smart contracts to real-world data.
FCLA (Flyingcarpet), a platform of geospatial insights that power financial instruments, prediction markets and more, with a focus on enabling cryptographically verifiable Carbon Offsets, is working with Chainlink to provide decentralized, cryptographically-verifiable carbon offsets generated via absorption of CO2 from reforestation.
Stay tuned!
Development
Social encounters
Recently, it was announced that Chainlink would be integrating Constellation’s Big Data solutions as the two companies forge a new path for blockchain. Traditionally, blockchain technology has been the underlying tool of a new financial instrument, in cryptocurrency, but this latest integration seems to be looking further into the future.
This latest integration sees Constellation, who recently signed a deal with the USAF to provide data and blockchain services, validate streaming data for the Chainlink ecosystem by becoming a Chainlink node operator.
Through Constellation’s “Blockchain for Big Data” approach, the company is able to assist in providing data infrastructure tools for developers to enable interoperability between legacy and cloud data systems.
This is an important step in the evolution of blockchain, as well as the next step in the technological revolution that is slowly playing out. The importance of data is becoming more and more prominent, and it is this data that these two companies are looking to utilize.
The Daily Chain spoke with Ben Jorgensen, CEO of Constellation, to discuss why it is important for these types of coming together between companies involved in new technologies.
“The world is still just learning about what blockchain is and how it can be used,” Jorgensen told The Daily Chain. “It is incredibly important for blockchain companies, like Constellation and Chainlink, to partner together to spread the word and educate on the impact of this revolutionary technology and our approach to adoption.
“The part of the blockchain industry that gets the most attention is the use of cryptocurrency as a financial instrument and the use cases that revolve around fin-tech. Constellation and Chainlink are introducing a world where data is the financial instrument, and data sets have the value that can be secured and secured.”
“An appropriate analogy would be how tech and data companies have become the most profitable companies in the world overtaking oil companies less than a decade ago. Just like the evolution of the gold standard, to pegging the dollar against oil, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies that are pure, financial instruments will be pegged to data.”
“This is where the expression “data is the new oil” comes from. But the truth is, very few companies have figured out how to monetize data effectively. This is where collaborations, partnerships, and integrations come in.”
Making use of the pathways
The way in which these two companies operate set up a relatively straightforward pathway for data to be used and understood. With Chainlink, there is this idea of making smart contracts smarter, by connecting the contracts to real-world data, and the next step in that pathway comes from Constellation.
“On the technology front, a technical integration between Constellation and Chainlink will open doors to people that are just now understanding what a smart contract is and how to connect real-world data to a smart contract,” explains Jorgensen.
“Constellation then presents a logical path forward to grow beyond smart contracts and accommodate streaming data while connecting with existing big data management solutions that are currently solving a multi-billion dollar big data industry.”
Real-world application
The pathway for these two companies to facilitate data may be spelled out in what they do, but it is interesting to note the use cases that can emerge from this integration. Jorgensen began by pointing out how Constellation can validate the data coming from Chainlink’s smart contracts.
“One interesting use case we see at Constellation is improving the integrity and veracity of data,” said Jorgensen. “As more and more data comes onto the Chainlink Platform, they will want a solution that validates the data and secures the data pipeline.”
“Fortune 500+ companies will require that standards are met around data as the disobeying and lack of ability to scale to support data systems could mean the loss of important data-driven insights in the organization.”
“Companies that are exploring use cases for blockchain will eventually need blockchain to meet the threshold and performance of centralized data management solutions and systems.”
Upcoming events:
Date and Time:
November 21, 2019
6:30 pm — 9:30 pm
Location
25 W 39th St · NY
Date and Time:
November 26, 2019
08:00 pm — 10:00 pm
Location
77 Massachusetts Ave · Cambridge, ma
Past events:
Several weeks ago, the Chainlink Virtual Hackathon launched with the goal of sparking a new wave in smart contract development by showcasing the power of secure off-chain connection via Chainlink oracles. The developer turnout and overwhelming support by the blockchain community were impressive.
First Place (15,000 USD equivalent worth of LINK)
LinkPal: Peer-to-Peer Ethereum to fiat decentralized escrow via PayPal. A smart contract uses Chainlink oracles to confirm that the PayPal invoice has been paid. The contract can confirm with multiple oracles, making it more decentralized and therefore more secure.
Second Place (8,000 USD equivalent worth of LINK)
Cerebus Wallet: Two-factor authorization for crypto transactions using phone push notifications. Even if your private key is stolen, an attacker would not be able to sign any operations without phone confirmation.
Third Place (5,000 USD equivalent worth of LINK)
Flyt: Flight insurance. Fill in your flight details. Customize your insurance policy. Pay the insurance premium through crypto.
Most Innovative (10,000 USD equivalent worth of LINK)
Link Total Return Swap: A Defi platform which enables Chainlink Node Operators to hedge against LINK price volatility. The Total Return Swap contract used is customisable allowing counterparties to trade on their own terms.
Judges’ Choice (1,000 USD equivalent worth of LINK)
In no particular order
Finance
Node operators
Prophet is joining a decentralized oracle network by becoming a Reviewed Chainlink Node Operator.
About Prophet
Prophet is a team of blockchain enthusiasts and early adopters. Its mission is to be pioneers in the process of connecting off-chain data feeds and web APIs with smart contracts. As a very first step, Prophet joined the Chainlink ETH/USD price aggregator — a contract that provides a precise Ether price based on 18 different independent data sources.
Prior to Prophet, Bake’n’Rolls was created — one of the first Tezos delegation services that’s been running since the very first days of the Mainnet. Currently, Bake’n’Rolls has a 4.9 million Tez (as of today, it equals to a $4.4 million) as a total amount stacked. The team has great experience in setting up and operating nodes in the blockchain industry as shown by its great uptime and failover capabilities.
Prophet Architecture
The team has built a reliable setup for its node, which includes best-practices in security, monitoring, and failover capability. Prior to running on the Mainnet, the team carefully tested and adjusted its infrastructure on the Ropsten Network over a several month time-frame. Prophet is using DigitalOcean for its cloud-based setup in order to guarantee the nodes have maximum uptime, connectivity, security, and DDOS protection.
The nodes are using Fiews for connection to the Ethereum network. Fiews is offering an Ethereum as a Service (EaaS) tailored specifically for Chainlink nodes and provides us access to load-balanced Ethereum nodes.
Roadmap
Partnerships and team members
Flyingcarpet is working with Chainlink to provide decentralized, cryptographically-verifiable carbon offsets generated via absorption of CO2 from reforestation.
FCLA (Flyingcarpet) is a platform of geospatial insights that power financial instruments, prediction markets and more, with a focus on enabling cryptographically verifiable Carbon Offsets.
Most recently, FCLA has embarked on the creation of Geospatial Prediction Markets, based on Gnosis’ new Mercury PM contracts. Via a partnership with a fast-growing French reforestation company called EcoTree, this innovates prediction market enables users to take positions related to reforestation and carbon offsets. You can learn more about the project here.
Instead of relying on a single, centralized oracle, via Chainlink insights can be piped on-chain via a larger set of node operators. Thus, enabling distributed applications to gain access to off-chain data in a decentralized and trustworthy manner.
Due to the disintermediated nature of FCLA’s carbon offset analytics, ensuring secure and distributed sourcing of off-chain data is central to maintaining the integrity of the platform. Since, for example, the FCLA Prediction Market dashboard enables the creation of potentially large economic positions related to carbon offsets, users must have confidence that off-chain data (used to resolved markets) is sourced in a highly reliable and consistent way. Chainlink provides this confidence.
Rumors
No updates
Social media metrics
The graph above illustrates changes in the number of Chainlink Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
