Who is Behind Chainlink?

Salomon Kisters

Jan 23, 2023

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Chainlink is a revolutionary technology in the blockchain space that has quickly become one of the most exciting blockchain projects today.

So who is behind this amazing technology?

Well, it turns out there’s an entire team of passionate people who are dedicated to bringing Chainlink to life!

Who Created Chainlink and How Does it Work?

At the forefront of this team are Sergey Nazarov, the founder and CEO, and Steve Ellis, co-founder and CTO of Chainlink. Sergey is a veteran in the industry, having been involved in the blockchain space since its early days. He saw the potential of Chainlink and set out to make it a reality.

Sergey is joined by Ellis and a team of engineers, developers, and advisors who are all working diligently to make Chainlink the go-to blockchain technology for the enterprise.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Chainlink was founded in 2014. The company has entered into partnerships with major technology and finance enterprises since then.

Chainlink has been widely adopted by developers building applications on various blockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, Tezos, and Polygon. Now that you know who is behind Chainlink, it’s time to know what Chainlink does and what makes it special.

ChainLink – The Decentralized Network of Oracles

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that provides secure, reliable, and tamper-proof data to smart contracts on the blockchain. An oracle is a source of data that is external to the blockchain, and it is often used to provide information that is not natively stored on the blockchain.

For example, a smart contract might need to access data from a traditional database, a web API, or an off-chain calculation to execute its logic. Chainlink allows smart contracts to access this external data in a secure and decentralized manner, using a network of nodes that are responsible for retrieving and verifying the data before it is passed on to the smart contract.

The key word here is “decentralized”. Whenever a blockchain-based technology has to rely on services from an outside party, it defeats the purpose of decentralization. The beauty of Chainlink is that it is the first decentralized oracle network that not only provides the highest level of security but also allows for the seamless integration of smart contracts on the blockchain.

Enough on Chainlink for now. Let’s take a look at some details on its founders next.

Sergey Nazarov

Sergey Nazarov is a co-founder of Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network that allows smart contracts on blockchain platforms to securely access off-chain data feeds and other resources. He is known for developing the Chainlink network and inspires an almost mystical reverence in the blockchain community, and many people believe him to be a candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto, the infamous founder of Bitcoin.

Nazarov immigrated to New York with his family in the 1990s and later earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and management at New York University. Before starting his own crypto business, he worked in various assistant positions to learn about company building.

In 2021, Chainlink had over $75 billion in total value secured and more than 1,000 projects in development, thanks in part to the expansion of its oracle network to include data from sources as varied as cryptocurrency prices, sports, and weather reports.

Sergey worked tirelessly on Chainlink, and he was soon able to reap the results of his efforts. Chainlink launched its services on several networks including Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon, and partnered with global enterprises like The Associated Press, AccuWeather, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform.

In 2022, Chainlink continued to progress as the leading oracle service provider for the blockchain. Under Sergey’s command, Chainlink introduced Hybrid Smart Contracts, which combine on-chain and off-chain data, and Keepers, bots that developers can use to automate Defi transactions.

Chainlink plans to focus on cross-chain solutions and has brought on advisors like Eric Schmidt, Jeff Weiner, and Balaji Srinivasan to help achieve this goal. The company has already made progress in this area, with projects integrating Chainlink price-feed oracles witnessing significant growth on platforms like Solana Devnet and Avalanche.

Steve Ellis

Steve Ellis is the co-founder of Chainlink, and he currently works as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Chainlink Labs. He also co-founded and served as CTO at SmartContract, where he developed self-executing, data-driven digital agreements that can automatically execute transactions based on predetermined conditions.

Ellis started his career as a software engineer. He worked as a software engineer at Pivotal Labs from July 2010 to March 2013. During this time, he worked on a variety of engineering projects with an emphasis on extreme programming, a software development methodology that focuses on delivering small increments of working software quickly.

In addition to technical development, Ellis also helped clients learn how to build products using agile processes and achieve test-driven expansion, a software development approach that involves writing tests for code before writing the code itself. He also assisted clients in hiring and making responsible technical decisions to build stable, scalable applications.

Before assuming his role at SmartContract, Ellis served as the co-founder and CTO of Secure Asset Exchange from June 2014 to January 2016. During his time at the company, he implemented easy web access to a decentralized asset exchange, which allows users to buy and sell assets securely and without the need for a centralized authority.

Along with providing secure messaging and decentralized data storage, the company also offers access to a decentralized buy/sell order matching engine, which helps facilitate the exchange of assets. Ellis also built an end-to-end conversion tool that enables users to easily transfer value between different blockchains and even automate the purchase of assets.

The amount of experience Ellis has in the tech industry brought a lot of innovation to the work done at Chainlink.

How Does Chainlink Work?

Now that we have talked about its founders, let us turn our attention to how Chainlink turns the decentralized oracle dream into reality. Chainlink operates with the help of three main types of contracts: the reputation contract, the order-matching contract, and the aggregating contract.

Reputation Contract

The reputation contract is the foundation of the Chainlink network and is responsible for managing the reputation and performance of individual nodes on the network. These nodes are responsible for retrieving data from external sources and returning it to the requesting smart contract.

The reputation contract maintains a record of the performance and reliability of each node, as well as any penalties or rewards that have been applied. This information is used to determine which nodes are eligible to participate in the order-matching process.

Order-Matching Contract

The order-matching contract is responsible for facilitating the process of matching a request for data with the appropriate node(s) on the network. When a smart contract submits a request for retrieving data, the order-matching contract creates an “order” that specifies the data needed, the desired accuracy and reliability of the data, and any other relevant parameters.

This order is then matched with nodes on the network that have the necessary reputation and capabilities to fulfill the request.

Aggregating Contract

The aggregating contract is responsible for collecting and processing the data returned by the selected nodes and returning a single, aggregated result to the requesting smart contract.

This process helps to ensure the integrity and reliability of the data, as it is obtained from multiple independent sources. The aggregating contract may also apply additional logic or calculations to the collected data before returning it to the requesting smart contract.

Together, these contracts work to ensure that smart contracts on the blockchain can securely and reliably access the data and resources they need to function effectively.

What is LINK Token?

The LINK token is the native cryptocurrency of the Chainlink network. It is used to pay nodes on the network for the data and services they provide, as well as to incentivize the operation and maintenance of the network.

LINK staking refers to the process of holding and “staking” (locking up) a certain amount of LINK tokens in a smart contract as collateral to participate in the operations of the Chainlink network. Staking LINK tokens allows users to earn rewards for the work they contribute to the network, such as providing data or running nodes. The amount of rewards earned is proportional to the number of LINK tokens staked and the duration of the staking period.

Chainlink held its initial coin offering (ICO) in September 2017, during which it sold 350 million LINK tokens. The ICO raised a total of $32 million. As of December 2022, the market capitalization of LINK is over $3 billion, making it one of the top-performing cryptocurrencies in terms of market value.

We won’t talk about prices here, because as everyone knows, prices see enormous fluctuations in the blockchain world. The industry is still in its early stages, and it will take time before it finds stability. The conventional financial industry had centuries to do what the blockchain industry is expected to do in just two decades. However, with projects like Chainlink, the future looks bright.

We look forward to seeing what Chainlink brings us in the future.

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