Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov announced today that the decentralized oracleprovider is to launch its service on the Ethereum mainnet on May 30. It’s the culmination of six years’ hard work for Nazarov and his team.
Chainlink helps smart contracts respond to actual events, providing a secure and reliable method for a smart-contract to “know” what’s going on in the real world, enabling it to access verification of external factors—such as market prices, Internet of Things and shipping data.
The announcement—which will lead to the first functioning, decentralized oracle network—was made at Consensus 2019, in New York City.
Nazarov told Decrypt that the launch will be “a significant step beyond theory and into practice.”
He said that the service had successfully completed three security audits and the team was confident that the system was secure enough to go live. He added that they had a significant user base ready to benefit from the oracle service.
“We’re going from these theoretical questions to a more practical implementation that will hopefully result in the creation of more value, if not immediately than over the near term,” he said.
Chainlink has also recently announced a raft of new partnerships, in addition to the thirty plus integrations it’s made public over the past three years.
Nazarov shared his vision for the startup’s future. Chainlink will first launch on the Ethereum blockchain, he said, and praised the dedication of its developers. But the system will not be limited to Ethereum, and will soon launch of other networks that “hold value” too.
The launch, he said, could mark “an explosion in the types of contracts people build—from insurance to derivatives to supply chain and finance use cases.” He explained that if developers can combine inputs and outputs into their smart contracts, that “will accelerate what they build.”
While acknowledging the significance of the achievement, Nazarov added that the real value for himself and his team would come “when we see people building more advanced smart contracts: "That’s what gets me and our team very excited—whether it’s a decentralized derivative or a decentralized insurance product.”
He promised more news, about integrations with other chains and environments “very soon.”