016: Chainlink

Smart contracts are limited on blockchains like Ethereum, Cardano, and Solana. Chainlink greatly expands the capabilities of smart contracts by enabling access to real-world data and off-chain computation. Learn more about why Chainlink is important for the future of smart contracts and Dapps.

Please leave a comment and let us know what you think about this episode. You can find Candid Crypto on all your favorite podcast platforms, so please like and subscribe to stay up to date on everything crypto!

In addition, every Candid Crypto episode is transcribed so you can easily understand everything that was discussed.

Episode 16 Transcription – Chainlink

Liam 00:00

Smart contracts changed the game when it came to Blockchain Tech and Cryptocurrency. They allowed us to do things like DeFi applications, NFTS, and things we haven’t even thought of yet. But they have their limits. That’s where Chainlink comes in.

Welcome to Candid Crypto, a place where anyone can learn about Blockchain Tech.

Michael 00:27

We are two friends who love cryptocurrency and have acted as retail investors and researchers for years. I’m Michael.

Liam 00:35

And I’m Liam.

Our goal is to create a community where listeners can build their knowledge and meet like-minded people in the digital asset space.

Michael 00:47

Chainlink is a Decentralized Oracle network that provides real world data to smart contracts on the Blockchain. And before you think this episode is over your head, because I said Decentralized Oracle Networks and Smart Contracts, stay calm. We’re going to walk you through it. And we’re going to start off with Smart Contracts.

Michael 01:08

Liam, can you just do a quick overview of what a Smart Contract is? We’ve talked about it in past episodes, but let’s just do it again.

Liam 01:14

Most certainly. So a Smart Contract is an agreement that exists on a programmable Blockchain, like Ethereum, or Solana.

Michael 01:25

And what are smart contracts typically used for these days?

Liam 01:28

DeFi and NFTs, Smart Contracts have limitations, they aren’t able to bring in data from the outside, and they’re insular until Chainlink.

Michael 01:41

And that’s exactly where Oracle Networks come into play. You can think of an Oracle Network like Middleware that acts as an intermediary that translates data from the real world to Smart Contracts.

Liam 01:55

The kind of big picture with Chainlink is that it has a developer friendly ecosystem. It’s Blockchain agnostic. And the Link token is what fuels the ecosystem for the on chain to off chain Bridge. What’s important with Chainlink, you can bring in outside data.

Michael 02:10

Yeah, and when I first heard about Chainlink it took me a while to grasp. Oracle networks are the interface for this data to come into the Blockchain for Web 3.0.

Liam 02:22

And the data can be anything, it can be weather data, it can be stock data. So there’s a lot of capacity for this thing to continue growing like crazy and to go beyond is $12 billion market cap.

Michael 02:38

And like you said earlier, a lot of these applications that we’re going to be building in the future, we haven’t even thought of it. But we would need to bring in real world data to make it possible.

Liam 02:49

What we need for real world applications that solve real world problems is to have robust tools to build things like that. And to me, Chainlink is a clear winner in terms of how robust the developer documentation is, the community, and the people who participate in it. They have a really wide reach in the crypto community,

Michael 03:11

And, you know, Oracle Networks, they’re not really new. And they are found in the real world. From a centralized perspective, but Chainlink is bringing Oracle Networks in a decentralized way, which really creates the value companies that we use every day like Uber, they’re only possible because they’re pulling in so many different data sources and API’s like they’re pulling in information from Google Maps, they’re using payment systems like Stripe, they’re using messaging services to help communicate with the drivers. Like, without all that infrastructure and technology, Uber wouldn’t exist, I can see a lot of real life changing revolutionary daps come out only because we have chain link and Oracle Networks that can enable them. So we’ve talked about chain link at a very high level, but it really can’t be that simple.

Liam 04:10

Chainlink has multiple moving parts that make this oracle network on-off chain Bridge possible. That begs the question, okay, I’m an everyday person, do I need a token that allows me to spend money to fuel these sorts of data transactions

Michael 04:29

And services.

Liam 04:30

And services. And the answer is probably not. Like, you got to be pretty in this to be spending link to receive data. You know, that’s not an everyday person sort of activity.

Michael 04:42

You know, that’s funny, you said that because that’s something I kept on asking myself, which was, you know, is this really useful to the everyday person or is it only useful to the people creating Dapps? I don’t know.

Liam 04:57

The Candid Crypto opinion is we don’t know.

Michael 04:59

You know, as a consumer that uses DeFi applications and other Dapps. It is cool to know that there is reliability when it comes to the data and all the information on how the daps working like it’d be nice to know that Chainlink was used. I don’t know if I would really need to own any link because I’m not using the services.

Liam 05:22

I own link because I like to buy tokens.

Michael 05:27

Well, yeah, and I totally understand that like in preparation for this episode, you were trying to spin up your own network and node.

Liam 05:35

Yeah, I was trying to get a chain link node up, which proved to be more difficult than I thought, mostly because my Raspberry Pi, like 2 of my SD cards I think were corrupted, which seems like too high of a failure rate. I think the Raspberry Pi is screwed up somehow. Thank you very much for tuning in to this week’s episode of Candid Crypto.

Michael 05:57

And if you’ve noticed Liam’s voice change it’s because it did. But stay tuned to everything coming out. We got a lot of things coming out with Candid crypto. We’re onboarding new team members that are really into NFTs and we’re going to be making a lot more NFT content. So stay tuned.

Liam 06:14

Stay tuned. Check us out @CandidCryptoPodcast.com. Peace out.