Harmony is partnering with Chainlink, the leading oracle service provider, for its secure blockchain. The Chainlink network provides reliable and secure input and output data which smart contracts on the blockchain require to function. Chainlink has been recognized by leading independent research firms and top blockchain projects for its cutting edge technology.
What is an Oracle?
Certain applications require smart contracts to access off-chain data, but they are unable to access external data on their own. For example, a smart contract which automatically deposits insurance amount to travelers’ accounts in case of flight delays would need to know the flight schedule at the airport and the current time. An oracle is a 3rd party information source which can interact and exchange data with smart contracts. Oracles trigger the execution of smart contracts when a certain predefined condition is satisfied. By enabling smart contracts to interact with real-world data, these oracles expand the scope and impact of blockchain applications.
What is Chainlink’s Role?
To function, oracles require some amount of trust and authentication, which is contrary to the trustless nature of the blockchain itself. Chainlink uses a highly decentralized network of oracle nodes to guarantee end-to-end data security. By allowing multiple data-pathways (or Chainlinks) to evaluate the same data before it is allowed to become a trigger, Chainlink ensures that the failure of one oracle node doesn’t compromise the data integrity or smart contract functionality. This data includes, but is not restricted to, off-chain data feeds, web-based APIs, and traditional banking payments. Chainlink is being used to provide highly secure and reliable oracle services to both large scale enterprises (such as SWIFT) and smart contract developer teams.
Harmony and Chainlink
As dApps developers expand their vision, their smart contracts end up requiring data from multiple real-world sources. Blockchain design complexity increases over time as a single blockchain has to support multiple oracle networks. The oracles, on their part, require a highly scalable and extremely secure blockchain network, both to support the high volume of data and to ensure that the data remains unadulterated.
We are designing a high throughput, low latency, fully secure blockchain network. It uses an innovative sharding technique called Deep Sharding where the layer on which consensus happens is also sharded along with the transaction layer, to magnify network throughput. The beacon chain, along with the shard chains, improves both the security and the scalability of the network. A host of other such features together guarantee that Harmony will be the blockchain of the future, providing connectivity for billions of people.
Supporting innovations in the field of smart contracts is one of Harmony’s primary objectives. By choosing Chainlink as its oracle service provider, Harmony ensures that DApp developers can access real-world data securely and efficiently.
As Harmony’s Co-Founder Nick White puts it, “Oracles are a key piece of the smart contract ecosystem that Harmony wants to build. Chainlink will provide a key piece of that infrastructure.”
Daniel Kochis, Chainlink’s Global Head of Business Development, adds “Securely accessing off-chain data and payment systems is a necessary capability to build out blockchain ecosystems, and Chainlink is excited to collaborate with Harmony to provide their developer community with reliable oracles.”
If you want to start your own Chainlink, you should check out their website. To stay up-to-date about Chainlink’s latest developments, join them on Telegram and Twitter.
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