Frequently asked questions

Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing capital markets onchain, and the market leader powering the majority of DeFi. The Chainlink stack provides essential data, interoperability, compliance, privacy, and orchestration infrastructure needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more.

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Many of the world’s largest financial services institutions have adopted Chainlink, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, S&P Dow Jones Indices, FTSE Russell, WisdomTree, and ANZ, as well as top Web3 protocols such as Aave, Polymarket, Lido, Lighter, and hundreds more. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. 

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Learn more by reading What is Chainlink? A Beginner’s Guide or The Oracle Platform Powering Institutional Tokenization for a deep dive.

Chainlink solves the blockchain oracle problem, enabling smart contracts to securely connect with external data and systems. Upon this foundation, Chainlink enables institutions, asset issuers, and decentralized protocols to solve five fundamental problems of transacting onchain:

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• The Data Problem: Digital assets need accurate information to be useful in transactions, including market pricing, net asset value, proof of reserves, reference data, corporate actions, and settlement instructions. Chainlink is the undisputed market leader in bringing data onchain securely and reliably.
• The Interoperability Problem: Digital assets need to move seamlessly across blockchain networks to maximize distribution and liquidity. Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) is the most secure way to move data and value across any public or private blockchain, opening up global markets for tokenized assets.
• The Compliance Problem: Regulated institutions require compliance and policy enforcement capabilities to be embedded within digital assets and smart contract applications, such as identity verification, risk screening, exploit protection, and asset-specific restrictions. The Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) extends existing identity and compliance infrastructure to blockchains, enabling hundreds of trillions of dollars in regulated capital to move into the onchain format.
• The Privacy Problem: Regulated institutions require privacy for sensitive aspects of their onchain applications, such as client data, trading strategies, and business logic. Chainlink Confidential Compute brings privacy to every part of the transaction lifecycle, from data inputs and identity verification to transaction processing and cross-chain settlement.
• The Synchronization Problem: Digital assets must remain synchronized with legacy systems once issued, often across multiple chains. Chainlink is the only oracle platform that enables institutions to securely interact across blockchain networks through their existing infrastructure and messaging standards. Furthermore, tokenized assets powered by Chainlink support Unified Golden Records—essential information embedded within the assets that stays with them as they move across chains.

Chainlink was founded by Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis in September 2017, with the release of the Chainlink whitepaper. Ari Juels, former Chief Scientist of RSA, helped co-author the whitepaper. 

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The Chainlink Network officially went live on mainnet in May 2019.

The blockchain oracle problem, also known as the smart contract connectivity problem, refers to a blockchain’s inability to natively access external data and existing systems in a secure and reliable manner. This prevents smart contract applications from interacting with the outside world.

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Blockchains are focused on maintaining a consistent ledger (the state of asset ownership and smart contract code), and keeping that ledger accurate, available, and tamper-proof. They do this by having each network participant (i.e., a blockchain node) run the same set of basic computations, resulting in consensus-driven, cryptographically verified outcomes. The only information blockchain nodes need to validate pending transactions is an up-to-date copy of the blockchain ledger, which they reference to answer basic questions such as whether the user signed their transaction with the correct private key and whether they have sufficient balance to cover the transfer. This use of historical ledger data to verify new transactions ensures determinism, resulting in strong security and reliability properties.

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However, blockchain-based consensus is not suitable for answering more subjective questions about the external world, such as the global price of an asset that trades simultaneously across many exchanges and regions. Having every blockchain node independently query external systems can lead to inconsistent answers and make verification difficult because the results are not cryptographically verifiable and deterministic. Importantly, this process doesn’t scale and could corrupt the blockchain’s consensus, potentially halting the network and affecting applications not involved.

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Creating a bridge between a blockchain (onchain) and the outside world (offchain) requires a separate piece of infrastructure known as an oracle. However, a centralized oracle introduces a single point of failure that can be easily manipulated, so the oracle mechanism itself must utilize its own type of consensus computing to ensure the end-to-end security of smart contracts. 

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Learn more by reading The Blockchain Oracle Problem.

A blockchain oracle is critical infrastructure that enables smart contracts to interact with data, systems, and computational resources that exist outside of a blockchain network.

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Oracles can be used to connect smart contract applications to real-world data, APIs, other blockchain networks, and existing systems and standards. They can also perform verifiable offchain computations to unlock enhanced utility, such as data aggregation, cross-chain interoperability, transaction privacy, policy enforcement, and orchestration with enterprise systems. By providing secure and reliable access to external resources, oracles enable blockchains to support far more advanced applications than would be possible using onchain data and computation alone. 

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Learn more by reading What Is a Blockchain Oracle?

A decentralized oracle network (DON) is a committee of independent oracle nodes that collectively fetch, aggregate, and deliver verified data to a specific location, such as a blockchain—akin to a microservice running in a decentralized manner. For example, a DON consisting of 31 Chainlink nodes can have each oracle node independently fetch price data from multiple data sources and generate a median value. Then, all the nodes’ individual medianized data is further aggregated into a single aggregated data point (i.e., an oracle report), which is delivered by the DON to the intended recipient (e.g., a blockchain application). 

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Learn more by reading What Is a Decentralized Oracle Network (DON)?

Blockchains are intentionally isolated from external systems for security and reliability purposes, as the way they achieve consensus is not suitable for verifying data or events occurring outside their networks. As a result, smart contracts can natively access information already available on the blockchain on which they are deployed, but cannot independently retrieve external market data, communicate with existing financial systems, perform complex computations, or securely interact with another blockchain. This is why the majority of real-world use cases for smart contracts require secure oracle infrastructure.

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Oracles overcome this limitation by providing secure external connectivity and verifiable offchain computation using decentralized oracle networks. This enables smart contract applications to use financial market data, verify reserves, automate compliance checks, coordinate transactions across blockchains, interact with payment systems, automate smart contract execution, conceal sensitive data, and perform other key functions required by DeFi and institutional tokenized-asset applications. 

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For a comprehensive list, read 77+ Smart Contract Use Cases Enabled By Chainlink.

Offchain computation is computation performed outside a blockchain environment, with the outputs delivered to blockchain applications or external applications.

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Chainlink DONs perform offchain computation for tasks such as data aggregation, decentralized consensus, cross-chain communication, contract automation, and other computations that would be costly, impractical, or impossible to perform entirely within a blockchain. The resulting outputs can be cryptographically attested and delivered onchain, allowing applications to use offchain resources while retaining verifiability and decentralized security.

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Learn more by reading What Is Offchain Data and Computation?

Consensus computing is a new computing paradigm in which a decentralized network of nodes reaches agreement on the result of a computation or task before delivering that result to an application.

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Blockchains use consensus computing primarily to maintain a consistent ledger of transactions and asset ownership. Chainlink decentralized oracle networks extend the concept to a much wider range of events and computations outside a blockchain; e.g., reaching consensus on a market price, an external event, a cross-chain action, or the result of an offchain computation.

The Chainlink Network encompasses the entire collection of decentralized oracle networks (DONs) operating in production at a given moment in time. Rather than operating as a single, monolithic network like many blockchains, the Chainlink Network is a heterogeneous collection of many independent DONs, each providing specific oracle services tailored to their specific users’ needs.

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Learn more by reading A Technical Deep Dive Into Chainlink.

Chainlink nodes are individual oracles on the Chainlink Network. These oracles are infrastructure run by node operators, including traditional Web2 telecommunications providers, leading data providers, and Web3 infrastructure providers. Once triggered, Chainlink nodes execute predefined jobs, such as fetching data, performing computation, and/or relaying data to a destination. Many Chainlink nodes combine to form a decentralized oracle network (DON).

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Learn more by reading A Technical Deep Dive Into Chainlink.

The Chainlink Network is blockchain-agnostic, meaning it can support any public or private blockchain, as well as any blockchain virtual machine (e.g., EVM, SVM, Move, etc). Chainlink can also connect those chains with any non-blockchain system.

The Chainlink ecosystem consists of thousands of organizations and protocols, as well as an expansive research and open-source development community. The Chainlink ecosystem includes node operators, data providers, developers, security experts, researchers, blockchain ecosystems, DeFi protocols, financial institutions, market infrastructures, asset managers, and other organizations that build or operate onchain applications powered by Chainlink. 

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You can explore the Chainlink ecosystem here.

Chainlink is used by DeFi protocols, global enterprises, financial institutions, market infrastructures, asset managers and issuers, custodians, exchanges and trading venues, data providers, blockchain ecosystems, public-sector organizations, and developers building onchain applications. Because the Chainlink platform is modular, users can adopt individual services or combine many services and capabilities to support their specific requirements. 

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If you’d like more information on how Chainlink can accelerate your digital asset strategy, reach out here.

Chainlink’s standards and infrastructure are being adopted by many of the world’s largest financial services institutions, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, S&P Dow Jones Indices, FTSE Russell, WisdomTree, and ANZ. Chainlink’s major banking and capital markets announcements can be viewed here.

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Chainlink also powers the majority of DeFi, including top protocols such as Aave, Polymarket, Lido, Lighter, Kamino, Maple Finance, and hundreds more, and supports major asset issuers such as BitGo, Coinbase, Kraken, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, and many more. Chainlink’s major DeFi integrations and announcements can be viewed here.

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The full Chainlink ecosystem can be viewed here.

Chainlink enables advanced blockchain applications that need to interact with multiple assets, blockchains, datasets, jurisdictions, and existing systems. Through its platform spanning data, interoperability, compliance, privacy, and orchestration, Chainlink provides foundational infrastructure needed to build and power sophisticated workflows that span onchain and offchain systems.

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In DeFi, Chainlink’s technology supports use cases such as pricing collateral, issuing and liquidating loans, settling derivatives, rebalancing liquidity pools, verifying asset reserves, powering stablecoins, and supporting high-throughput markets. 

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For institutional use cases, Chainlink’s technology supports asset pricing and servicing using data such as NAV and Proof of Reserve, fund subscriptions and redemptions, automated transfer-agent operations, cross-chain asset transfers, multi-chain stablecoin management, Delivery versus Payment (DvP) and Payment versus Payment (PvP) settlement, and integration with existing payment and financial systems.

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Chainlink enables applications to embed critical identity data, compliance policies, and privacy-preserving capabilities into their use cases, unlocking full-lifecycle applications across blockchains and existing systems built and powered through a single, unified platform.

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For a comprehensive list, read 77+ Smart Contract Use Cases Enabled By Chainlink.

LINK is a digital commodity and the native asset of the Chainlink Network, used to pay for oracle services, enhance network security, and earn rewards. Similar to how the native coins of blockchain networks are used to pay transaction gas fees (e.g., ETH on Ethereum), the LINK token is used by developers and organizations to pay fees in exchange for Chainlink services. 

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LINK is the standard form of compensation to network service providers, such as nodes, for successfully executing Chainlink services, thereby aligning their incentives with the proper functioning and long-term health of the network. LINK is also staked by node operators and community stakers to help increase the network’s cryptoeconomic security, backstopping service performance with economic commitments. Furthermore, the LINK token funds “oracle rewards” to bootstrap new decentralized oracle networks before fee-driven sustainability is achieved, similar to how blockchain networks use “block rewards” as a form of network incentive. 

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Originally issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-677 token—an extension of the popular ERC-20 token standard—the LINK token now circulates across numerous blockchain networks, with cross-chain transfers secured by CCIP. The total LINK token supply is capped at one billion tokens.

The Chainlink platform features a wide array of payment and billing methods related to the integration, usage, and maintenance of Chainlink products and services. This enables the Chainlink platform to meet the unique requirements of decentralized protocols, developers, and traditional enterprises. 

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The suite of products and services built on the Chainlink platform falls into two broad integration frameworks: (1) open standards, in which developers interact directly with Chainlink smart contracts and pay usage-based fees, and (2) managed services, in which organizations pay for integrations and services related to the Chainlink product stack. These include:

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• Network Usage Fees: Users pay for oracle services based on marginal usage. This includes subscription-based models, where applications keep fee balances within an onchain subscription contract that is drawn upon as services are consumed, as well as per-call payments, where users pay when executing transactions involving an oracle service.
• Protocol Revenue Share: Applications share a portion of the fees they generate with the Chainlink Network to pay for the oracle services they consume. This includes certain deals in which a percentage of the total fees generated by an application is paid in exchange for the use of certain Chainlink services. It also includes Smart Value Recapture (SVR) users, where a significant portion of the recaptured oracle Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is collected by Chainlink. 
• Enterprise Integrations: Traditional enterprises and institutions pay the Chainlink Network to integrate and access the oracle services they require to issue, distribute, and bring utility to their tokenized assets and smart contract applications. These deals position Chainlink as the secure connectivity layer for the entire blockchain industry, connecting legacy systems to public and private blockchains, as well as the key interoperability layer for moving data and value into, out of, and across blockchains. Capital markets adoption of Chainlink continues to accelerate, with a number of production use cases already live and many pre-production use cases approaching fully live deployment by some of the world’s largest financial institutions.
• Web3 Integrations: Decentralized applications and protocols also pay to integrate with the Chainlink platform, particularly through the Scale program. Chainlink Scale is designed as a foundational growth pillar for supporting blockchain ecosystems through enhanced access to Chainlink services. 

Payment Abstraction is onchain infrastructure that enables users to pay for Chainlink oracle services in their preferred form of payment, including onchain digital assets (e.g., gas tokens and stablecoins) and offchain fiat payments (e.g., USD bank transfers). Payments are then programmatically converted into LINK using a combination of Chainlink services and decentralized exchange infrastructure. Chainlink Payment Abstraction allows revenue from both onchain service usage and ongoing offchain enterprise integrations to flow through the Chainlink Network.

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Learn more by reading the Payment Abstraction launch blog.

The Chainlink Reserve is a strategic onchain reserve of LINK tokens designed to support the long-term growth and sustainability of the Chainlink Network. The Reserve accumulates LINK using offchain enterprise revenue and onchain service fees, and uses Payment Abstraction to convert offchain and onchain revenue into LINK. 

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The Reserve has already accumulated millions of LINK tokens, with no withdrawals expected for multiple years. As demand for Chainlink’s unique capabilities increases, adoption of Chainlink services can enable the Reserve to grow further. 

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The Chainlink Reserve can be viewed at https://reserve.chain.link.

Chainlink Staking is a cryptoeconomic security mechanism that enables ecosystem participants, such as node operators and community members, to back the performance of oracle services with staked LINK and earn rewards for helping secure the network.

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Learn more about Chainlink staking by reading the Chainlink Staking v0.2 launch blog.

Chainlink ecosystem participants, including node operators and community members, can stake LINK and participate in securing the Chainlink Network through staking.chain.link. Learn more about Chainlink staking by reading the Chainlink Staking v0.2 launch blog.

Chainlink’s economic model centers on three key pillars: 

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• Revenue growth helps support the long-term economic sustainability of the Chainlink Network, ensuring service providers are sufficiently rewarded and incentivized to maintain the network’s security and reliability over the long term. 
• Reductions in operating costs, such as through technical upgrades, help make oracle services more efficient to produce and deliver, lowering the minimum fee threshold required for sustainability. 
• Cryptoeconomic security ties payments and staking-based commitments to service performance, aligning incentives and reinforcing reliability as the value secured by the network increases. 

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Together, these pillars create a durable feedback loop, where more usage funds better security at lower unit costs and drives more innovative oracle services. The increased availability, security, and adoption of oracle services cultivate more fee opportunities for the network service providers who help secure the protocol, eventually reaching the point where oracle networks sustain themselves on user fees alone. This supports the long-term operation and scale required to power the global onchain economy.

The Chainlink platform is a collection of foundational standards required for the creation of institutional smart contract applications. This includes standards for data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy, along with an orchestration layer for composing these capabilities into advanced workflows. Chainlink’s all-in-one platform approach enables institutions, asset issuers, Web3 protocols, and developers to power assets and applications that interact across onchain/offchain systems without having to create and maintain bespoke infrastructure for every integration or adopt a complex web of individual vendors.

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Learn more by reading The Chainlink Endgame: Integrating the World Into the Tokenized Asset Economy.

Offchain Reporting (OCR) is the networking, consensus, and transmission protocol used by Chainlink nodes to form decentralized oracle networks and reach consensus on oracle outputs.

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The OCR protocol enables participating nodes to gather observations, aggregate them into consensus outcomes, cryptographically attest to the reports, and transmit them to their intended destination. Because much of this process occurs offchain, DONs can provide decentralized computation without requiring every node to independently publish every observation onchain.

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OCR3 is the latest major version of the protocol. It adds replicated state and ordered reporting, reduces latency, and enables substantially greater report throughput and programmability. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and OCR3 Protocol Paper.

The Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) is the all-in-one orchestration layer of the Chainlink platform. It enables developers to build institutional-grade smart contracts that are data-connected, compliance-ready, private, and interoperable across blockchains and existing systems, powered end-to-end by decentralized oracle infrastructure.

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CRE introduces a capability-based architecture in which different functions—such as accessing an API, performing consensus, or reading from and writing to a particular blockchain—can be performed by specialized DONs. These capabilities can be composed into a single workflow and reused across different applications, rather than requiring bespoke infrastructure for each workflow.

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CRE enables developers to build, test, and deploy custom workflows across public and private blockchains and existing systems with built-in consensus and cryptographic verification. It provides the orchestration layer for combining Chainlink's data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy capabilities and integrating legacy systems to support advanced, institutional-grade smart contract applications. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and watching the CRE webinar.

Chainlink Data Feeds are push-based oracle networks that provide smart contracts with secure, decentralized, and tamper-resistant access to market data across various blockchains. Data Feeds aggregate inputs from multiple data providers through a network of independent oracle node operators, producing highly reliable reference values that secure tens of billions in DeFi value. This design mitigates single points of failure, ensures transparency, and establishes Chainlink as the industry standard for data. 

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Data Feeds are push-based oracles that directly transmit offchain data to blockchain networks at specified intervals via a reference smart contract, which can then be utilized by other blockchain applications. Data Feeds provide broad market coverage, including cryptocurrency prices, foreign exchange rates, commodities, equities, and other datasets. 

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View all Data Feeds at data.chain.link/feeds and learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation.

Chainlink Data Streams are a pull-based, low-latency oracle service designed for high-throughput DeFi markets, such as perp DEXs, that require sub-second data delivery. Chainlink Data Streams provides real-time, cryptographically verifiable market data, such as market prices, liquidity indicators, and volatility metrics. This enables low-latency trading, advanced onchain risk management, and front-running protection, bringing DeFi performance closer to that of centralized exchanges without sacrificing decentralization. 

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Data Streams are pull-based oracles that make data available offchain at sub-second frequencies, which users or Chainlink DONs can then pull onchain at any time to power blockchain applications. 

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View all Data Feeds at data.chain.link/streams and learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation.

Chainlink SmartData is a suite of onchain data offerings designed to unlock the utility, accessibility, and reliability of tokenized assets. By providing secure minting assurances alongside essential data, such as reserves, Net Asset Value (NAV), and Assets Under Management (AUM), Chainlink SmartData embeds security and enhances the functionality of tokenized-asset offerings. As financial institutions continue to embrace tokenization, the demand for a variety of data types beyond market pricing is expanding rapidly, with Chainlink meeting that demand by bringing a multitude of specialized data onchain in a highly secure and reliable manner. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation.

Chainlink Proof of Reserve is a decentralized oracle service that provides real-time, automated verification of the collateral reserves backing onchain and cross-chain assets like stablecoins, wrapped tokens, and tokenized assets. By replacing slow, infrequent, and opaque manual audits with tamper-resistant, onchain transparency, Chainlink Proof of Reserve reduces systemic risk, enables circuit breakers in DeFi protocols, and increases user confidence in the solvency and backing of digital assets. 

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Asset issuers can integrate Proof of Reserve into their token’s minting smart contract (referred to as Secure Mint), helping mitigate "infinite mint attacks” by preventing the issuance of new units of tokens unless there are sufficient reserves to maintain collateralization. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and reading Secure Mint Explained.

Chainlink DataLink is an institutional-grade data publishing solution that leverages Chainlink infrastructure to enable data providers to deliver, distribute, and commercialize their data onchain. As a turnkey service, DataLink empowers data owners to seamlessly publish data to blockchains securely and realize all the benefits of connecting to onchain markets without requiring them to build or maintain new infrastructure. 

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By providing secure access to the same high-quality data that institutions already rely on, DataLink accelerates institutional adoption of digital assets and enables organizations to rapidly scale onchain. DataLink users include S&P Global, Deutsche Börse, Tradeweb, FTSE Russell, and more. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and the product launch blog.

Chainlink Smart Value Recapture (SVR) is a novel oracle solution that enables DeFi protocols to recapture Oracle Extractable Value (OEV)—a subset of non-toxic Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) associated with oracle updates, most commonly during the liquidation process of lending protocols. The value recaptured by Chainlink SVR provides DeFi protocols with an additional revenue stream while also supporting the economic sustainability of the Chainlink Network. 

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For example, Aave’s usage of Chainlink SVR can be viewed at https://svr.llamarisk.com/. Learn more about SVR by reading the product launch blog.

The Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) is the interoperability standard that unlocks the secure transmission of both data and value between blockchain networks. Chainlink CCIP enables organizations, smart contract applications, and end users to transfer digital assets, data, or both simultaneously (programmable token transfers) across heterogeneous blockchains (public and private), eliminating the need for fragmented and costly chain-specific integrations. 

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Built on Chainlink’s proven decentralized oracle networks, CCIP incorporates multi-layered security by default, independent and globally distributed node operators, and a modular approach that empowers token and application developers to customize their security configurations and avoid cross-chain issues that have led to billions in bridge hacks.

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and CCIP 2.0 launch blog.

The Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard helps organizations and developers to seamlessly integrate their tokenized and digital assets with CCIP, unlocking secure cross-chain transfers between blockchain networks.

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New and existing tokens can adopt the CCT standard to enable cross-chain transfers, while the issuer retains control and ownership of their token contracts. Notably, CCTs are token-logic-agnostic, meaning asset issuers can deploy pre-audited token pool contracts to convert any ERC20-compatible token into a CCT, or deploy their own custom token pool contracts for bespoke use cases. CCTs do not require token developers to inherit any CCIP-specific code within their token’s smart contract. 

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CCTs support self-serve deployments, full control and ownership for developers, enhanced programmability, and zero-slippage transfers—all backed by CCIP’s defense-in-depth security.

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and What Is the Cross-Chain Token (CCT) Standard?.

Chainlink Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) provides modular infrastructure for building compliance-focused digital assets and transactions. ACE brings together capabilities for reusable digital identity, compliance-policy management and enforcement, identity lifecycle management, and monitoring and reporting. These components can be composed into workflows to support compliance requirements across jurisdictions and multiple blockchain networks throughout the use case lifecycle. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and product launch blog.

The Chainlink privacy standard provides privacy-preserving data, computation, and interoperability to blockchain applications, tokenized assets, and traditional institutions.

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Its capabilities are designed to protect sensitive information, business logic, transaction details, and connectivity across chains and with existing systems. Components under the privacy standard include Confidential Compute, DECO, Blockchain Privacy Manager, and CCIP Private Transactions. These privacy capabilities can be composed through CRE with Chainlink's data, interoperability, and compliance infrastructure to build workflows that need both connectivity and confidentiality. 

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Learn more by reading the Confidential Compute launch blog.

The Chainlink DTA technical standard is a comprehensive set of technical standards that define how transfer agents and fund administrators can expand their operations onchain while complying with existing regulatory frameworks. The Chainlink DTA technical standard leverages multiple time-tested Chainlink capabilities to provide the easiest and most reliable path for licensed market participants to launch their own onchain transfer agency services and capture the emerging opportunity of tokenized financial markets.

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The Chainlink DTA technical standard runs seamlessly on top of the CRE to leverage core capabilities, such as legacy-systems integrations, access to fiat settlement via established payment rails, and record reconciliation with offchain systems. Furthermore, the Chainlink DTA technical standard leverages multiple standards and services within the Chainlink platform, including: 

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• CCIP to enable multi-chain distribution of tokenized assets.
• ACE to enforce role-based controls and compliance requirements onchain.
• SmartData for NAV to process tokenized fund subscriptions and redemptions.

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation and product launch blog.

Chainlink VRF is a provably fair and verifiable random number generator (RNG) solution for smart contracts. Chainlink VRF combines block data that is still unknown when the request is made with the oracle node’s pre-committed private key to generate both a random number and a cryptographic proof. The consuming application will only accept the random number input if it has a valid cryptographic proof. 

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VRF provides blockchain applications with a secure source of randomness that cannot be manipulated or anticipated by users, node operators, or contract administrators, making it ideal for onchain use cases such as gaming, NFTs, and lotteries. 

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Learn more by reading the Chainlink Documentation.

The Chainlink Network comprises the highest-quality oracle nodes, operated by leading DevOps and security teams with domain expertise and extensive experience in running mission-critical infrastructure. Chainlink nodes are independent and security reviewed, ensuring Sybil resistance and quality control.

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Chainlink services also employs a defense-in-depth approach, combining multiple security solutions to increase oracle network robustness and reliability. Across different services, this can include decentralized infrastructure (at the data source, node operator, and RPC level), extensive monitoring, highly audited software, timelocked multi-signature upgrade processes, independent institutional verification (e.g., SOC 2 Type 2 certification), and other specific product features such as rate limits on cross-chain transfers, outlier detection in data, circuit breakers, and more. 

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Chainlink’s security track record is time-tested and has been proven in production for most of the past decade, including during extreme market volatility, network congestion, and unexpected outages of key global computing infrastructure (e.g., Chainlink remained online and operational during the 2020 COVID crash, 2021 Ethereum congestion, 2022 FTX collapse, and 2025 AWS outage).

Chainlink differentiates itself across four key dimensions: security and reliability, all-in-one platform offering, development flexibility, and network effects.

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Security and reliability

Chainlink has a proven, time-tested track record of providing the highest level of security and reliability to production applications, including during extreme market volatility, network congestion, and unexpected outages of key global computing infrastructure (e.g., Chainlink remained online and operational during the 2020 COVID crash, 2021 Ethereum congestion, 2022 FTX collapse, and 2025 AWS outage).

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Chainlink services employs a defense-in-depth approach to security, combining multiple security solutions to increase oracle network robustness and reliability. Across different services, this can include decentralized infrastructure (at the data source, node operator, and RPC level), security reviewed node operators run by experience DevOps/security teams, extensive monitoring systems, highly audited software, timelocked multi-signature upgrade processes, independent institutional verification (e.g., SOC 2 Type 2 certification), and other specific product features such as rate limits on cross-chain transfers, outlier detection in data, circuit breakers, and more. 

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Other solutions are often centralized, have poor operational security practices, limited security depth, and little experience securing high-value applications. These issues have resulted in other solutions suffering oracle exploits and cross-chain bridge hacks that have cost the DeFi ecosystem billions of dollars in value exploited.

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All-in-one platform

While other oracle solutions often focus solely on data, and bridges focus solely on blockchain-to-blockchain interoperability, Chainlink provides a single platform where developers and institutions can access infrastructure for high-integrity data, cross-chain interoperability, existing systems connectivity, programmable compliance and identity verification, privacy-preserving computation, and workflow orchestration, including through the use of AI agents. Thus, Chainlink is a one-stop-shop for creating entire customized workflows across onchain and offchain systems with embedded data, compliance, privacy, and AI, and then extending those workflows to new use cases without rebuilding from scratch.

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Because other solutions often only address a fraction of an application’s needs, users are forced to either build everything in-house—which is costly, time-consuming, and very difficult—or adopt a complex patchwork of service providers with different interfaces, security assumptions, and economic models. This increases risk and the app’s attack surface with each vendor, with an exploit or gap in security in any one vendor placing the entire application at risk.

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Development flexibility

Chainlink’s modular architecture allows workflows to be customized around different regulatory, operational, privacy, performance, and security requirements, while still benefiting from a secure-by-default foundation. This ensures each app gets a baseline level of institutional-grade security, yet still empowering users to layer on additional customizations to meet their specific needs. Chainlink is also blockchain-agnostic and can support any offchain connection, making it future-proof against industry changes.

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Other solutions often make developers choose between rigid designs with limited customization, or fully configurable models that provide little-to-no security baseline, forcing developers to become infrastructure security experts as opposed to just focusing on the core business logic of their application.

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Network effects

The Chainlink ecosystem includes thousands of organizations and protocols across all the major blockchains, as well as an expansive research community, open-source development support, and adoption by the world’s largest financial institutions and top DeFi protocols. Chainlink’s large, fast-growing ecosystem makes it easier to collaborate across protocols and counterparties as they are already deployed on the same Chainlink standard.

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This creates a network effect where the more people that build on and integrate with Chainlink, the more valuable the Chainlink oracle platform becomes for everyone. The Chainlink platform also drives an economic flywheel, where the more Chainlink oracle services are used, the more user fees that are generated for the network. These user fees support Chainlink’s long-term economic growth and sustainability while also creating proper incentives for Chainlink’s ecosystem of service providers.

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Other solutions often have limited adoption, making it more difficult to collaborate across ecosystems or invest in security, putting into question their long-term viability.

Chainlink is decentralized across multiple layers, with many Chainlink services combining multiple layers of decentralization to provide the strongest security and reliability assurances.

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• Data source: Chainlink data services, such as Data Feeds and Data Streams, take a median across multiple independent data providers to avoid reliance on a single source of truth.
• Node Operator: Chainlink decentralized oracle networks leverage consensus among multiple independent node operators to produce a single trusted result and reliably deliver it to a destination without a single point of failure.
• RPC: Chainlink decentralized oracle networks utilize multiple RPC endpoints, including running their own full nodes and leveraging third-party services, to ensure decentralization of their RPC infrastructure
• Service: The Chainlink Runtime Environment and CCIP utilize multiple independent decentralized oracle networks to provide services to users, separating responsibilities for added security.
• Network: Chainlink has thousands of distinct decentralized oracle networks running in parallel, each providing a specific service. This prevents users from being locked into a single oracle network configuration and supports custom requirements.

Building the infrastructure required for advanced blockchain applications in-house is complex, resource-intensive, and difficult to maintain. Applications increasingly need to interact with multiple blockchains, external data sources, and existing systems, while also supporting requirements such as interoperability, compliance, privacy, and offchain computation. Building each of these components internally requires expertise across many technical domains and diverts resources from an application's core business logic.

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Specifically, institutions taking this route would need to operate, secure, and deliver 99.99%+ global uptime for such mission-critical infrastructure, as well as stand up and continuously maintain secure connections across all supported blockchains. Each additional chain introduces further complexity, with every chain featuring its own RPC standards/endpoints, gas-fee market dynamics, finality models, hard-fork governance processes, and more. Institutions must also extend and synchronize their existing KYC/AML systems and broader compliance frameworks across all chains, ensuring that sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, and policy enforcement remain consistent as assets move between networks. This model exposes institutions to significant risks, including cross-chain state mismatches, reorgs and chain halts, signing key exposure, and integration patches as each network evolves independently. 

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The result is a permanently expanding operational, compliance, and security burden that must be monitored in real time across all chains simultaneously. Beyond the technical challenges, proprietary shared infrastructure often has limited adoption because competitors are unlikely to build on a rival's infrastructure.

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In contrast, Chainlink provides an all-in-one, credibly neutral oracle platform that gives developers and institutions access to the key infrastructure needed to build advanced blockchain applications. Rather than building everything from scratch, users can compose and power end-to-end workflows using a single, unified platform that already provides access to all the key data, compliance, and privacy services; is connected across all the main public and private blockchains; and is maintained to institutional-grade security and reliability standards, with a proven track record of enabling tens of trillions in onchain transactions.

Chainlink is not a single monolithic network but rather a collection of thousands of decentralized oracle networks, each configured to meet the specific requirements of its distinct users.

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While oracle networks share many characteristics with blockchains, namely decentralization and cryptoeconomic incentives, there are key differences in their operation. Blockchains operate in a highly deterministic and predictable environment, focused on validating transactions using cryptography and historical state. Oracle networks, by contrast, operate in highly non-deterministic and unpredictable environments where consensus is generated about external events in the real world.

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Since oracle networks are not static, they require regular updates and adjustments to maintain a high level of security and reliability. The ability to adapt to unpredictable externalities is how Chainlink has securely scaled to thousands of independent oracle networks and can continue to scale to help secure onchain markets involving tens of trillions of dollars in tokenized assets.

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To meet user demand and continuously improve performance, Chainlink services are updated periodically to introduce new features and functionality. Additionally, due to the dynamic nature of offchain environments, swift updates may be required in response to externalities, such as token migrations, protocol rebrands, extreme market events, and upstream issues with data or node operations.

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In alignment with software development best practices, updates can encompass offchain and/or onchain processes, as Chainlink services comprise both onchain smart contract logic and offchain infrastructure, such as the node client and data provider endpoints.

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Offchain updates

These commonly occur at the node operator level, where each operator manages their own node configuration. Updates can include upgrading to a new node software version to improve performance or changing API endpoints in a job specification if a data provider becomes unreliable. Offchain updates can also occur at the data provider level, such as in response to a token migration event or other externalities.

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Onchain updates

These take place at the smart contract level, where a multi-signature (multisig) contract is used to modify onchain parameters related to a Chainlink service. This can include replacing faulty nodes on a specific oracle network, introducing new features, or resolving a smart contract logic error. The multisig-coordinated upgradability of Chainlink services relies on time-tested processes that balance collusion resistance with the flexibility needed to implement improvements and adjust parameters.

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Specifically, using a multisig to modify onchain parameters allows for a safe, secure, and rapid response to black swan events and other potential incidents within minutes, minimizing service interruption for users. Alternative approaches can introduce severe risks: oracle services with immutable onchain logic require a full contract redeployment if any parameter needs modification, which can delay incident response, introduce significant coordination friction, and necessitate additional actions from users who may not respond in a timely manner.

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Multisig signers

Signers on Chainlink Gnosis Safe multisigs and ManyChainMultiSig (MCMS) contracts are selected from multiple high-quality node operators with a proven, multi-year track record of securing billions in value within the network, as well as from Chainlink Labs. Signers are spread across multiple geographic locations globally and may be rotated periodically to help mitigate risks, such as geographic concentration.

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In alignment with industry practices, the identities of signers are not publicly disclosed. Disclosing exact identities could put individual signers at risk, exposing them to potential spear phishing attacks and other forms of targeted exploitation or social engineering. This balance between transparency and operational security reflects the security-conscious approach taken to every aspect of the network.

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Evolving upgradability processes

As the ecosystem continues to evolve, so too has the approach to the upgradability of different oracle networks. For example, all onchain security-critical configuration changes and upgrades to the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) must pass through a Role-based Access Control Timelock (RBACTimelock) smart contract. Any proposal must either (1) be proposed by a dedicated MCMS contract and then be subjected to a review period during which the node operators securing CCIP are able to veto it, or (2) be proposed by that contract and be explicitly approved by a quorum of the node operators securing CCIP, providing an alternative path during time-sensitive circumstances.

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Any onchain update that passes the timelock without a veto becomes executable by anyone, which can be done by running a timelock-worker to process executable upgrades. Additionally, CCIP uses a novel ManyChainMultiSig (MCMS) contract structure, which supports the signing of multiple transactions that target multiple chains with a single set of signatures—a scalable solution for managing CCIP configurations across a growing number of supported blockchains.

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With Chainlink Staking v0.2, all onchain security-critical configuration changes and upgrades must pass through a timelock smart contract featuring a delay of up to a few weeks, with critical configuration changes taking the longest (longer than the unbonding period for withdrawing staked LINK). This allows the community to review and choose to opt out of such changes before they are implemented onchain.

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Moreover, Chainlink is a generalized and modular protocol that enables oracle networks to be customized to the exact requirements of users. This includes the ability for users to set up and launch their own oracle networks with custom configurations and upgradability processes.

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Security is the number one priority for the Chainlink ecosystem—a north star objective that is not compromised. As new technologies emerge and the platform expands, Chainlink will continue to evaluate and implement the most secure and effective processes for managing upgradability. Information about the upgradability of Chainlink Data Feeds is available in the Chainlink documentation.

The usage and economic viability of Chainlink oracle networks across the blockchain ecosystem are continuously evaluated to ensure resources are fully optimized to achieve the greatest long-term impact for the network. As part of this process, specific oracle networks on certain blockchains may be scheduled for depreciation in coordination with the relevant teams. This process allows resources to be reallocated toward oracle services that better reflect current user demand, supporting the network's long-term economic sustainability. This may also involve retiring legacy components so development and support can remain focused on the architectures in active use today. 

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Please use the following resources for depreciation and upgrade updates:

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• The Changelog provides the latest status on deprecated oracle networks and network upgrades.
• The Chainlink Documentation lists the Data Feeds and Data Streams designated for deprecation, along with their corresponding shutdown dates.
• The data-feeds-user-notifications channel in the official Chainlink Discord provides status updates regarding oracle network deprecations.

The source code for various Chainlink services and infrastructure can be viewed at github.com/smartcontractkit.

Patenting inventions is a common practice around new technologies and can help protect public goods like Chainlink from frivolous litigation and bad actors who could claim ownership of technology that they did not develop. Notable open-source platforms have used patents to help ensure key technologies remain viable and accessible over the long term.

The speed of each decentralized oracle network (DON) in the Chainlink ecosystem depends on how speed is being measured (e.g., throughput vs. latency), where oracle reports are stored (e.g., offchain or onchain), and how data ultimately lands onchain (e.g., push vs. pull). For example, high-speed Chainlink services, such as Data Streams, operate with sub-second latency and update frequencies, in which data is stored offchain and can be pulled onchain by users at any time. This model allows the service to operate at the native speed of the underlying blockchain network where data is consumed. 

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In contrast, push-based oracle networks, such as Data Feeds, directly deliver data onchain on a regular cadence. They are optimized for economic sustainability, and their speeds can vary from blockchain to blockchain. For cross-chain services such as CCIP, the dominant factor determining the speed of a transaction is the time it takes for the source chain to achieve full finality—the assurance that past transactions included onchain are extremely difficult or impossible to revert.

The Chainlink network was designed to scale horizontally, enabling an infinite number of heterogeneous oracle networks to be deployed in parallel, each operating independently. In contrast to single monolithic network architectures, the Chainlink Network supports any number of DONs simultaneously, with each performing oracle services tailored to its users' needs.

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The Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) further improves this architecture by splitting the individual jobs involved in provisioning an oracle service into reusable capabilities powered by specialized DONs. For example, one DON can retrieve data from APIs, another can perform consensus, and another can write the resulting data to a particular blockchain. The same capability can then be reused across multiple applications.

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This specialization makes it easier to expand Chainlink across new blockchains and services. If a new blockchain emerges, a DON can be created to read from and write to that chain, giving applications on the new network access to other Chainlink capabilities. Developers can also modify workflows by swapping capabilities—for example, changing the destination blockchain—rather than rebuilding the entire application.

Chainlink nodes can access any authenticated or premium data source API through the use of modular external adapters. External adapters can be written in any programming language and hosted as serverless functions on any cloud provider or on a web server. These adapters allow nodes to access a wide array of data sources, including authenticated and private APIs that require sensitive password keys, such as enterprise backends and subscription-based sources. Therefore, nodes have a high degree of flexibility, as API credentials can be kept offchain and stored securely, separate from the node itself.

Many Chainlink oracle networks for data services operate with multiple layers of data aggregation to ensure there is no single point of failure or reliance on a single source of truth that could be corrupted. Such redundancy is required not only to ensure high-value smart contracts consume highly refined data, but also to ensure that the data reflects the true market price through full market coverage. With Chainlink data securing tens of billions in user funds, having multiple layers of aggregation helps ensure a secure and reliable DeFi ecosystem.

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The three layers of data aggregation include:

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• Data source level: Professional data aggregation firms fetch market data from hundreds of exchanges, take into account volume and liquidity differences, and generate a single weighted reference price.
• Node operator level: Each individual Chainlink oracle node sources price data from multiple data aggregation firms and takes the median, mitigating outliers and API downtime and ensuring nodes do not rely on any one source.
• Oracle network level: The responses from multiple oracle nodes are aggregated by taking the median, ensuring no individual node has control over the resulting data point delivered to contracts.

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All of this together ensures smart contracts consume the highest-quality data that reflects the true market-wide price. For more on secure oracle design, read Data Quality for DeFi Smart Contracts and The 3 Levels of Data Aggregation in Chainlink Price Feeds.

Developer responsibilities vary by product, but in general, developers are responsible for the security, reliability, and user experience of their own applications, and for securely managing any interactions with third-party services.

For Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams, developers are also responsible for accounting for market integrity risks (e.g., market manipulation, volatility, liquidity conditions) and application code risks (e.g., code quality, audits, dependency management, and contingency logic like circuit breakers).

For Chainlink CCIP, responsibility is shared across multiple parties — application developers, blockchain development teams, token developers, and Chainlink node operators — each with distinct obligations. Application developers using CCIP are responsible for things like code audits, dependency management, blockchain and token risk assessment, monitoring, and communicating risks to their users.

For more information on developer responsibilities, read the Chainlink Documentation for Data Feeds, Data Streams, and CCIP, as well as information notices throughout the docs and relevant terms of service.

Transaction Value Enabled is a cumulative flow metric that measures the aggregate monetary value of transactions facilitated by a protocol over a given time period. Chainlink TVE is measured as the total U.S. dollar volume of transactions enabled by Chainlink oracles. This includes every transaction where:

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• A Chainlink Price Feed reference contract was called onchain.
• A Chainlink Data Streams oracle report was pushed onchain.
• Chainlink CCIP was used to transfer value across chains.

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TVE is calculated across millions of transactions using onchain data and resolved across thousands of token prices. It measures both volume and facilitated flow, capturing not only input and output values but also how a protocol is used in transactions to facilitate the secure transfer of value. Chainlink TVE encompasses a wide variety of transactions and movements within transactions that require Chainlink oracles for accurate price updates or cross-chain interoperability, including trading, lending, rebalancing, automated yield farming, stablecoin minting, perpetuals, and many other use cases. 

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For the current TVE, see Chainlink Metrics.

Total Verified Messages is a cumulative metric that measures the total number of verified data outputs published on smart contract blockchains by a protocol over a specific period. Chainlink TVM is calculated by taking the sum of all verified outputs published on smart contract blockchains by Chainlink oracles, specifically:

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• Data Feeds transmissions
• Data Feeds observations
• CCIP messages sent
• VRF usage
• Data Streams usage
• CRE onchain activity

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Chainlink TVM is calculated across millions of transactions using onchain data and includes all blockchains on which Chainlink services are live. For the current TVM, see Chainlink Metrics.

The Total Value Secured is a metric that measures the total value of assets deposited into or borrowed from smart contract applications secured by Chainlink oracles, in US dollars.

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For the current TVS, see Chainlink Metrics.

Total Cross-Chain Token Value is a metric that measures the fully diluted value (FDV) of Cross-Chain Tokens (CCTs) integrated with Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). This includes tokens for which the issuer has granted burn/mint approval to CCIP (i.e., burn-mint bridges), as well as tokens for which the issuer has adopted a canonical wrapped-token deployment that uses CCIP (i.e., lock-mint bridges).

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For the current Total Cross-Chain Token Value, see Chainlink Metrics.

Chainlink has a variety of active channels where you can find the latest Chainlink announcements, discover helpful technical resources, and connect with other members of our rapidly growing community. Below is a list of official Chainlink channels. As a security best practice, always double-check the URL that you are visiting to ensure you’re accessing official Chainlink properties. Chainlink will never ask for your passwords, seed phrases, private keys, or other confidential information.

• Chainlink X: https://x.com/chainlink 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chainlink-labs/
• ChainlinkLabs X: https://x.com/chainlinklabs 
• LINKWIRE X: https://x.com/SmartContract 
• Discord: https://discord.com/invite/chainlink
• Telegram: https://t.me/chainlinkofficial
• Blog: https://chain.link/blog 
• Docs: https://docs.chain.link/
• GitHub: https://github.com/smartcontractkit/chainlink
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chainlinklabs/
• Newsletter: https://pages.chain.link/subscribe
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Chainlink/
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4juI6roWxQn7jPo4S2uwb0
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chainlink
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chainlink/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chainlink.smartcontract

To stay up to date on the latest Chainlink news, we encourage you to read our quarterly review blog posts, where we highlight major product launches and industry adoption of the Chainlink platform.

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You can also follow Chainlink on X, follow Chainlink Labs on LinkedIn, subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter, and follow the Chainlink GitHub.

For inquiries related to security and support, please reach out to the admins of official Chainlink channels or email support@chain.link‍. You can also find more technical information in the Chainlink Documentation. 

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Always practice a security mindset and ensure that the users you are interacting with on community channels have verifiable, trusted identities. You can confirm the accounts of official Chainlink community admins by clicking their names in the chat or viewing their handles under the official channel info.

There are numerous projects working on the development of the Chainlink ecosystem, including Chainlink Labs. You can find a full list of open roles on the Chainlink Labs careers page.