Just incase you're really new, or think that Crypto is a tulip bubble:
CHAINLINK VIDEOS:
LINKS: (That won't steal your links)
https://github.com/smartcontractkit/chainlink -the github
https://chainlink-docs.smartcontract.com/#installation -The ChainLink API documentation.
https://link.smartcontract.com/whitepaper -Whitepaper (Duh)
https://hudsonjameson.com/2017-08-06-advising-status-smartcontract/ -an Advisor's thoughts on smartcontracts
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/the-race-to-connect-smart-contracts-to-the-real-world American Banker [Financial Publication]
https://paymentweek.com/2017-9-7-previous-chief-scientist-rsa-releases-smart-contract-connectivity-whitepaper-facebook-director-engineering-llvm-creator-joins-chainlink-advisory-board/ -Previous Chief Scientist Of RSA Releases Smart Contract Connectivity Whitepaper, Facebook Director Of Engineering & LLVM Creator Joins ChainLink Advisory Board
https://www.febelfin.be/sites/default/files/InDepth/smart-contracts.pd_.pdf - Capegemini report
https://www.gartner.com/doc/3698947/cool-vendors-blockchain-applications- - Garner Report
https://www.coindesk.com/swift-startup-winner-demos-smart-contract-trade-5-financial-firms/ - Barclays, BNP Paribas, Fidelity, Societe Generale and Santander test out Chainlink
- SIBOS updateshttps://twitter.com/addyching/status/919995073990979591
- addyching
http://www.crossroadstoday.com/story/36335056/previous-chief-scientist-of-rsa-releases-smart-contract-connectivity-whitepaper-facebook-director-of-engineering-llvm-creator-joins-chainlink
Additional Information:
I noticed a lot of you guys didn't know what ChainLINK would be actually useful for or get too hung up on the "banking" premise that was shilled a lot on /biz/. Let me explain the TRUE merit of ChainLINK.
Bitcoin was the first decentralized currency that was trustless in nature. Ethereum was the first decentralized smartcontract service that was trustless in nature.
ChainLINK is the first "bridge" between real life data and crypto that is decentralized in nature.
What does this mean?
ChainLINK can take real time datastreams like Sensor data/non-crypto financial data such as real time interest rates etc and combine it with smartcontracts.
What this does is create tremendous potential wealth and make businesses possible that weren't possible before ChainLINK existed.
Let's look at the examples of how ChainLINK could be used in real life with one thing that is already confirmed.
A startup called Confido wants to make a payment and delivery system where they will use real time data from the delivery service's sensor system if a package actually arrived or not. When the sensor data confirm that the package is arrived a smart contract will automatically pay the vendor of that package automatically. This type of service would be impossible with ChainLINK if you'd wanted to make it trustless without 3rd party meddling.
Other potential things that could be done ONLY with ChainLINK.
Trustless Gambling Racehorses gets sensors in them whichever reaches the finish line first gets their data send to ChainLINK which then through smartcontract pays out everyone that betted on that horse. Online gambling where the roulette has sensors in every landing place and automatically pays out to whomever betted on that automatically through ChainLINK.
Trustless Insurance,Trustless Warranty When you have a car it could automatically send it's realtime data like speed,GPS position and miles driven to ChainLINK. And it could in real time change your insurance terms based upon your driving behavior and if you crash your car pays out (or not) automatically based on these sensor data without needing a third party.
Same for Warranties. If the sensor data shows the warranty should apply it could automatically pay the party or if it is voided it automatically voids the smartcontract.
Connecting all currencies ChainLINK can actually be used to link different currencies such as dollar,euro,yen with all different cryptocurrencies and each other. Because you can input real data into it you could make it so that banks could "lock in" things like "Bank A coin=$5" and based upon how much other coins are worth in real time feeded to ChainLINK would make it possible to buy "Bank A coin" with ALL different cryptocurrencies even though they only accept dollars.
Last but not least
New bank shattering application You know when you pay for something and you don't want to use your creditcard because of fees? So you go and do a wire transfer straight from your bank to another one.
But then you usually have to wait a couple of days or even a week if it's international and you are unlucky.
Well. ChainLINK is the solution to that. A bank (or third party application) could just feed the information from Bank A that you made a wire transfer to Bank B. And then through ChainLINK combining that data with a smart contract Person that has Bank B account gets paid that money immediately and so the vendor/friend/whatever that uses Bank B knows that he got paid even though he hasn't received the money yet and thus can give the guy from Bank A his goods/whatever immediately. Thus cutting out Creditcards/Wire transaction time and everything WITHOUT having to use cryptocurrency per-se as the end user.
THIS is why LINK is the most talked about coin on /biz/ since ETH. Because it'll be a game changer.
Sure you can say "There is no guarantee it will be adopted" or "Why won't every of those businesses not just program their own solution".
But I could say the same thing about ETH "What if smartcontracts won't get adopted?" "Can't companies not just program their own smartcontract services?"
The answer is NO. Because the value is added due to it being DECENTRALIZED. There is no third party that can meddle with the transaction. It's all real time based on sensor or other outside information which gives security to the users.
I hope some of you understand the potential of LINK some more right now.
I have seen a lot of FUD lately surrounding ChainLink and a lot of people losing faith. While everyone is waiting for news to drop, here is what we know about ChainLink as of now.
PARTNERS:
Here are some names of companies that ChainLink is working with, or at the VERY least has contacts with.
SWIFT: This one should be obvious to everyone by now. They just gave a working demo for SWIFT at SIBOS. They even state on the smartcontract website that they are indeed WORKING WITH SWIFT. The cheeky bastards even have SWIFT subtely underlined, as shown here:
https://imgur.com/a/UcnTf
SONY & AXA: We all know who SONY is. Axa is the largest holder of financial derivatives in the world. It's a trillion dollar market. All three parties have signed a smart contract that deals with varying levels of insurance coverage depending on firewall uptime on May 9th 2016, viewable here:
https://create.smartcontract.com/#/contracts/317764c5bf532e8b33572b6e77ae2133
https://imgur.com/a/uzRH1
FACTOM: Factom and ChainLink have been working together since 2016. You can view Factom's announcement about it here:
https://www.factom.com/blog/smartcontract-factom-announce-collaboration
https://imgur.com/a/Lf6vr
CONFIDO: A new company that is using ChainLink to pull shipping data from off-chain. See following website about this here:
http://confido.io/
https://imgur.com/a/7Visz
Short video explaining how it works: 
MICROSOFT: This one is a bit of speculation, but let's take a look.
https://imgur.com/a/VLmP0
In this video, Sergey states that they are indeed "working with Microsoft..." on the development of their cryptlets at 46:13 (Link below)
If you feel like reading up on what it actually is, then check the link below and scroll down to "Bletchley Introduces Cryrplets, which is a "Secure Blockchain Middleware into their architecture"
https://github.com/Azure/azure-blockchain-projects/blob/master/bletchley/bletchley-whitepaper.md
Also, an article stating that Microsoft recently joined Cornell, who is a ChainLink partner as stated on the Smartcontract website.
https://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-joins-cornell-blockchain-research-group/
DATA USED FROM BANKS AT SIBOS DEMO: Now keep in mind that these banks are NOT announced partners, but ChainLink has used them for their POC in their demo at SIBOS:
Barclays
BNP Paribas
Fidelity
Societe Generale
Santander
COMMON FUD: I have seen a lot of the same FUD repeated on 4chan, lets take a look and see if we can dispell some of this shall we.
The big one that seems to be going around now is an old picture from a completely different presentation that Sergey is giving in what appears to be a small room. Here is the floor plan for the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, showing that the largest room is where the SWIFT presentations are in. (The room is actually next to restrooms though KEK)
"THEY ARE USING A SHITTY ERC20 TOKEN" : The token is only used to incentivize NODE operators. ChainLink itself can operate on the BTC blockchain, Ethereum blockchain, AND Hyperledger, as stated on the smartcontract website.
"THIS IS A PUMP AND DUMP SHITCOIN" : The developers have been working on ChainLink for over 3 and a half YEARS now. They haven't made any hype surrounding it or posted any skateboard pics. The largest wallets holding LINK have mostly not moved since ICO or are acquiring more LINK tokens. If this were a pump and dump they would be hyping the shit out of this coin and dumping it on us. This is clearly not the case.
"THE TEAM ONLY HAS 2 DEVS": This is true. However, they clearly already have a working product that is on their website, which they have already demo'd in front of a large crowd at SIBOS today. ChainLink is already a working product, unlike a lot of other shitcoins with a much higher market cap.
RECAP:
So let's recap, ChainLink is working with or at the VERY LEAST have contact with the following companies/organizations:
-SWIFT
-Gartner
-Cornell
-World Economic Forum
-Sony
-Axa
-Microsoft
-Factom
-Confido
Is their any pie that ChainLink doesn't have their fingers in? Their tech is literally revolutionary. Smart contracts are fucking useless without being able to pull real world data from off-chain. This coin was 4x up from ICO price at ATH but now it's super cheap. It is brand new and still in it's infancy. Do not let these 4chan biztards FUD you into selling a fucking goldmine.
If they release an announcement stating all of their partners + exchange listings, this thing will be the
BIGGEST. COIN. EVER
Let this sink in for a moment. I'll wait.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!! ! ! !
Ari Juels is a faculty member at the Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech. He co-authored
this work in his separate capacity as an advisor to SmartContract ChainLink Ltd., in
which he has a financial interest. In 2004, MIT’s Technology Review Magazine named Dr. Juels one of the world’s top 100 technology innovators under the age of 35. Computerworld honored him in its “40 Under 40” list of young industry leaders in 2007. He has received other distinctions, but sadly no recent ones acknowledging his youth. - (http://www.arijuels.com/)
Chainlink was selected by the World Economic Forum's Tipping Point report as the "Shift in Action" for Smart Contracts, for their work on allowing smart contracts in the Bitcoin network to be automatically triggered by external data. -
(
Chainlink is partnered with Cornell's IC3, to help launch the first Intel SGX secured link between smart contracts and external data. This more secure way of running an oracle is the future and they're glad to be moving it forward.
Chainlink has been chosen as a 2017 Blockchain Applications Cool Vendor by Gartner. This validates the value that CTOs and CIOs see in our more secure approach to connecting smart contracts with critical external resources. - (https://www.gartner.com/doc/3698947/cool-vendors-blockchain-applications-)
Chainlink is presently working with SWIFT on their own SWIFT Smart Oracle. Allowing smart contracts on various networks to make payments, send governance instructions, and release collateral with over 11,000 banks. - (https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/HJglipax9KmMPx)
SWIFT's premier blockchain project consists of two main pillars:
- Distributed Ledger Tech or DLT (basically a blockchain)
- Smart contracts
Smart contracts are meant to bridge the gap between external data and blockchains.
SWIFT is pretty far along with the first pillar (DLT), but has nothing at all yet for smart contracts; except for Smartcontract.com/Chainlink of course.
The "gpi" thing in OP's pic is a global payments initiative, and the third phase of gpi also involves DLT and related options.
This may very well include Smartcontract.com/Chainlink, of course; but the partnership is still in its infancy.
SWIFT's premier blockchain project consists of two main pillars:
Source: https://www.swift.com/node/39911
Very first line of that SWIFT document:
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Smart Contracts (SC) promise to transform automation in the financial industry, and are generating huge interest amongst financial institutions and technology providers.
Nicely outlines the two main parts as listed above: (1) DLT and (2) Smart Contracts.
Massive consulting firms like Capgemini are devoting entire reports to smart contracts, specifically mentioning Smartcontract.com (= Chainlink) and Sergey Nazarov by name as the sole smart contract solution that can use external data thanks to oracles.
Source: https://www.febelfin.be/sites/default/files/InDepth/smart-contracts.pd_.pdf
Excerpts:
Sometimes, external inputs such as prices, performance, or other real-world data may be required to process a transaction, and oracle services help smart contracts with inputs such as these.
Smart contracts will also need to be able to work with trusted external data sources if they are to utilize external information. Smart contracts can achieve this with the help of oracles – programs providing smart contracts with the data they need from the external world or carrying the commands they need to send to other systems. Sergey Nazarov, Cofounder and CEO, smartcontract.com – a startup specializing in building oracles – outlines how connectivity with real-world data will be key.
If you don't know what Capgemini is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgemini
Back in 2015 the World Economic Forum also mentioned smartcontract(s).com by name:http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC15_Technological_Tipping_Points_report_2015.pdf#page=24
I'll trust world-class economic influencers like WEF and Capgemini.
finished product
massive business relationships
enormous marketing opportunity coming up at SIBOS
sky-high industry interest already, see above
beastly use case (mainstream fucking smart contracts)
B-b-bb-b-b-but...
chainlink has -2 devs, would need to hire 2 devs even to have zero staff
whitepaper is written on a bar towel covered in vomit
ICO caused 9/11
roadmap literally goes backwards to 2008 then crashes
Sergey isn't even real he's a balloon with a face drawn on
Except
Confido has already adopted Chainlink as their oracle
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/3-cryptocurrencies-to-keep-an-eye-on-that-are-not-bitcoin_us_59d22c36e4b034ae778d4c32
http://confido.io/
""We recently made the switch from Oraclize to Chainlink because of the decentralised aspect of Chainlink. The way we use Chainlink is pretty simple; our smart contracts track packages by using multi-carrier shipping API’s like Easypost and Postmen to view the delivery status of a package. We connect to, and pull data from, these API’s using Chainlink.
Before we made the switch from Oraclize to Chainlink we relied on one single API to serve us the correct data, which simply wasn’t secure enough when dealing with people’s money. Chainlink allowed us to stay decentralised and improve the security of our platform by allowing us to pull data from several API’s.
We are bullish on LINK and hope to accelerate the adoption by using it in our own project. There are so many use cases for LINK, our project is just one of them.""
Look at ETH.
What makes it worth the $300 it is today?
Smart contracts
They are revolutionary. Don't know why? Google it. You will find all sorts of uses for them, from Finance, Insurance companies, Airlines, you name it. There is a problem however, which is probably slowing down ETH's growth. Right now, smart contracts on the Ethereum network are limited; it's confined within the blockchain and with data on the blockchain.
Chainlink changes that.
All of those potential uses for Smart Contracts - that's all now a very legitimate possibility now. In the simplest terms, Chainlink allows for external data to inform smart contracts. When you consider the fact that it's decentralised, it gets a whole lot better.
People that keep saying things like "why would banks use chainlink when they can just make their own version" clearly don't understand the fundamentals of this project. Chainlink's goal is not to "be used" like (e.g.) Ripple hopes to achieve.
Chainlink is merely the bridge that enables data which is outside of the Ethereum 'universe', to communicate with it, and thus execute various actions. Thus, it's not unlikely that adopters will use their own private blockchain (biggest reason would be to avoid the market fluctuations in it's value). But - what will they use to get their data, onto the blockchain - whether it be their own token, eth, etc... Chainlink.
Eth and smartcontracts. We all know smartcontracts are revolutoinary, but their use cases are limited. Smartcontracts are awesome, but they are confined within the blockchain and data on the blockchain. In otherwords, right now smartcontracts are "you send 1 eth and I'll send back 1000 McTokens", and this contract is verifiable/trustless/amazing but its stuck within the universe of Ethereum and the data Ethereum understands
It is possible to use external data to inform these contracts, but right now that process is centralized. This is a problem. Lets say the external data is a transaction of Dollars for ETH. So you send 300$ to bank account X, and then I send one Eth to your address. Right now you either do that through a third party (CoinBase), OTC (LocalBitcoins) or whatever else centrlized system you want to use.
Knocking out that centralization, where you have to trust someone, is THE key to SmartContracts having a real world use case. But how do you get that information -- the fact that the $300 has been sent -- onto the blockchain using data that the smartcontract understands?
- Oracles. Right now the answer is "hey we can hire Oracle X to do the translation to represent this bank dollar transaction on the blockchain." The "oracle problem" with this is that you are 100% TRUSTING that oracle to act prudently. That they don't tamper with the data. So we can kill coinbase but now we have to trust the oracle instead of coinbase .This is a HUGE problem for Banks who want to get into blockchain but have to trust a centralized oracle to translate data. This Oracle can be hacked, falsified, defrauded, really all the problems that come with centralization.
- ChainLink - this service DECENTRALIZES that translation process of the Oracle. Now, the translation is trustless, and you have a trustless data feed that informs the trustless smart contract.
Multibillion dollar institutions can rely on distributed blockchain technology and know the data that informs their smart contracts is tamperproof.
So Thats what ChainLink does. ChainLink is the first decentralized Oracle that allows anyone to securely provide smart contracts with access to external data, off-chain payments, and really literally any other API you can dream up. Confirmation of delivery of an items (RFID, like Walton), confirmation of a wire being sent or received, interest rates from any central bank, sports scores, product/machine uptime, price of Eth/BTC in real time, weather patterns etc. Right now smart contracts are simple if/then functions where you go and manually do the if so the then comes back. Now with Oracles smartcontracts can automatically confirm or deny if then statements without any human interaction. Transactional automation for agreed upon terms on steroids.
Anyone can now engrain off-chain data directly onto the blockchain in an actually decentralized way and use that data to directly inform trustless smart contracts, and since the Oracle is decentralized you know the data feed is secure and you’re not concerned with tampering on the Oracle’s part. This is like a skeleton key to actualize the data on the blockchain and apply that data to real world use cases.
Essentially, Smart Contracts are flawed because they, by their very nature, can't interact with data outside the blockchain. Oracles are the bridge which allow that to happen, but current oracles are centralized and could possibly manipulate the data they are passing for their own benefit, which causes big companies wanting to implement smart contracts to get cold feet.
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network, which will allow the oracles on the network to act in a similar manner to how we see bitcoin miners interact with the bitcoin blockchain --- they don't care about what they're processing, they just process it. This allows the trustless and tamperless translation of the data from the source to the smart contract, which opens up a whole world of possibilities. I wrote a couple examples to help open your mind to it:
Securities smart contracts such as bonds . . . You have a Bond which you have a smart contract for which is fed market data through an oracle, calculates the effective interest rate and payment based on the terms of your bond, and processes your dividends through a payment network oracle (SWIFT Payment network)
Insurance smart contracts, which uses data from IoT devices in your home to support claims for insurable events, such as your fire alarm or home security system automatically beginning a claim with the company providing your personal property insurance when one of those events occur.
Trade finance smart contracts. For example, you're a manufacturing company, your automated factory produces plumbuses which are then delivered to your clients via a self driving semi truck company. You have a smart contract in place with the trucking company that smart contract needs to track GPS data on your shipments and compensate you for any delays, it will need to integrate data from supply chain ERP systems, and will need to interact with other smart contracts involved with the international customs shipping to ensure fulfillment of the original smart contract obligations.
Once you start thinking about this stuff, it's simply incredible what we're going to be able to do with it. It's like learning about the "next big thing" 10 years in advance.
Listen very carefully to what I'm about to say.
Ambrosos wants to represent external data (food) on the blockchain.
Walton wants to represent external data (RFID tags) on the blockchain.
Ripple wants to represent external data (financial transactions) on the blockchain.
These use cases are ENTIRELY contained within ChainLink.
ChainLink is the skeleton key that makes all these proects obsolete. It gives every company the building blocks to use oracles that represent ANY data, not just single use cases like food/RFID/financial transactions, however they want.
Ethereum is a blockchain with advanced scripting language whichallows running of decentralized applications (dapps) and Smart contracts. What are smart contracts? It is a digital contract planted in the Ethereum blockchain. It is a tamper-proof commitment of all participants of the contract. It is used to exchange money, property, shares etc, without a middleman. Ethereum's creator's description of smart contract is to compare the technology to a vending machine. Ordinarily, you would go to a lawyer or a notary, pay them, and wait while you get the document. With smart contracts, you simply drop a bitcoin into the vending machine (i.e. ledger), and your escrow, driver’s license, or whatever drops into your account. More so, smart contracts not only define the rules and penalties around an agreement in the same way that a traditional contract does, but also automatically enforce those obligations.
Now, how do we get tamper proof, secure data feeds into Ethereums blockchain in order to expand the variety of use cases. How do we get information, external data, about markets, shares, web API feeds, bank payments, back-end systems, retail payments, real life event data or data about other blockchains into the Ethereum blockchain.
The main use of smart contracts in Ethereum today is management of ERC20 tokens, which are a common functionality in most smart contract networks.The current focus on tokens to the exclusion of many other possible applications is due to a lack of adequate oracle services.