Founded in 2017, Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink enables blockchains to securely communicate with external data feeds, events, and payment methods, providing critical off-chain information needed for complex smart contracts, the dominant form of digital contracts.
The Chainlink network is managed by a large open source community, including data service providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors, and more. The company focuses on the decentralized participation of all node operators and users willing to contribute to the network.
What is Chainlink (LINK)?
Founded in 2017, Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink enables blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events, and payment methods, providing critical off-chain information needed for complex smart contracts, the dominant form of digital contracts.
The Chainlink network is managed by a large open source community, including data service providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors, and more. The company focuses on ensuring decentralized participation for all node operators and users willing to contribute to the network.
Check out our Chainlink deep dive to learn more about this project.
Who Are the Founders of Chainlink?
Sergey Nazarov is the founder and CEO of Chainlink Labs. He graduated from New York University with a degree in business administration and majored in philosophy and management. His professional career began as a faculty member at NYU Stern Business School. In 2009, Nazarov founded ExistLocal, a peer-to-peer marketplace for authentic local experiences.
In 2014, he founded CryptaMail, a fully decentralized, blockchain-based email service. In 2014, Nazarov partnered with Steve Ellis to launch SmartContract, a platform that brings smart contracts to life by connecting them to external data and widely accepted bank payments. SmartContract is one of the entrepreneurs that led Sergey Nazarov to found Chainlink.
Steve Ellis graduated from New York University in 2010 with a degree in computer science. Immediately after graduation, I became a software engineer at Pivotal Labs. In 2014, he founded Secure Asset Exchange, a company that facilitates easy web access to decentralized asset exchanges.
Chainlink (LINK) Token Price Prediction
| Name | Price | 24H (%) |
|---|---|---|
 Tether (USDT) | $1.00 | 0.05% |
 Chainlink (LINK) | $6.51 | 1.07% |
What Makes Chainlink Special?
Chainlink is one of the first networks to enable the integration of off-chain data into smart contracts. With many trusted partners, Chainlink is one of the big players in the data processing space.
Thanks to its integration of off-chain data, Chainlink has attracted the attention of many reliable data providers, including Brave New Coin, Alpha Vantage, and Huobi. Data service providers can sell access to data directly to Chainlink, thereby monetizing their data.
As a decentralized network, Chainlink allows users to operate the critical data infrastructure necessary for blockchain success, become node operators, and earn revenue.
Chainlink uses a large collection of node operators to power a diverse decentralized Price Feed oracle network in production that secures billions of value for leading DeFi applications such as Synthetix, Aave, and Compound.
How Many Chainlink (LINK) Coins Are in Circulation?
During the initial coin offering (ICO) for LINK in September 2017, Chainlink announced a total supply of 1,000,000,000 LINK tokens. The current supply is 453,509,553 LINK tokens at the end of September 2021 or about 45% of the total supply. The price of Chainlink in the ICO was $0.11 and a total of 350 million LINK tokens were sold. That’s 200 times the current ICO price to the Chainlink price.
Chainlink price had a huge growth from mid-2019 to mid-2020. Chainlink bulls were known as “LINK Marines”, a popular meme in the crypto community. Chainlink’s price reached an all-time high of $52.88 on May 9, 2021, as a result of the overall growth of the crypto market, as well as the ongoing developments in the Chainlink ecosystem.
According to the ICO document, 35% of the total token supply will go towards rewarding the node operators and the ecosystem. Another 35% of LINK tokens were distributed during the public sale event. Finally, the remaining 30% of the total token supply goes to the company to continue developing the Chainlink ecosystem and network.
How Is the Chainlink Network Secured?
As an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, Chainlink is secured by a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Unlike the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus used by Bitocin, PoS relies on the number of tokens staked to select validator nodes.
PoS protocols are designed with the idea of dealing with the huge energy consumption required by PoW systems. PoS models are becoming increasingly popular due to their low power consumption and easy scalability. While PoW has proven to be a reliable consensus mechanism, Ethereum and all other ERC-20 tokens are growing rapidly and setting trends in the space.
Where Can You Buy Chainlink (LINK)?
Chainlink and the LINK token are among the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market. With this in mind, many exchanges are pushing to start offering to trade on LINK. One of the best exchanges to buy Chainlink is Binance.
Other exchanges that offer to trade on LINK:
- Huobi Global
- Coinbase Pro
- Gate.io
- Kraken
It is important to note that investing in cryptocurrencies, like any other investment, carries risks.
To check the Chainlink price in the currency of your choice, you can use CoinMarketCap’s converter function directly from the Chainlink currency page. Or use the special currency converter page. Popular Chainlink price pairs include: LINK/USD, LINK/GBP, LINK/AUD and LINK/EUR.
